Jillian Michaels: Day One.

I decided that with summer and my surgery coming up, and since I will basically be spending my entire recovery time at the beach, I need to look hot doing it! So, I went out and bought Jillian Michaels' book, "Making the Cut". It teaches you about nutrition, and walks you through a rigorous diet and exercise plan. She says that if you follow this book to the letter, you could lose 20 pounds in 30 days. I'm not trying to lose 20 pounds, but I am trying to get a 6 pack, so this book will work wonders on me too. Now, I am no stranger to working out, but I am accustomed to eating whatever I want, whenever I want, with few consequences, so this will be an interesting month.

After a few days of being too busy or tired, and saying, "I'll start tomorrow," I finally bit the bullet today. Here's basically how that went down.

I don't feel comfortable disclosing too many details from the book, because I'm not sure Jillian would appreciate me taking away her sales by making her information public. So, I'll just tell you this: It was HARD...but awesome. 50 reps of this, 50 reps of that, 5 different circuits with like 5+ exercises in them...and a 30 second break in between each circuit. When you're done with all that, 15 minutes of extra cardio. At times, I felt like I was going to cry and scream "I hate you Jillian!" But I toughed it out and it is going to be SO worth it!

I stayed true to her vision, including my allotted 30 second break times. I worked really hard and did all of the exercises, and did them right! Well, um, all but one that is. "Squat thrusts" - Alex, (who is doing this with me too) and I thought that we knew what that meant. Squat thrusts sounds easy enough to comprehend. Well, we didn't do them right. Not at all. A squat thrust, for those of you who don't know, looks a little something like this.

The way Alex and I decided to "Squat Thrust" IN the middle of the gym, looked a little something like this.

Needless to say, tomorrow I'm going to look at Jillian's exercise example pictures a little better.

Here's what my arms look like thus far:

Right now, it's late and I am starving and sore. I've already eaten dinner, and since then, I've been trying to tide my body over with water...and by promising it we will eat again tomorrow.

Alex told me that "Jillian Said" I wasn't allowed to eat triscuits at nighttime, resulting in our newest addition to theeee... Quoteboard!

"Don't tell me what to do or I'm going to get another cardio workout in when I beat your ass!"

- yours, truly

Bad Wednesday Turned Good.

Hey friends,

The next set of stories I have for you is from a random compiling of events over the past few days.

The first is regarding the documentary project that I mentioned hating here. Good news friends, my view on documentaries has once again changed for the better. I was literally at the end of my rope with this project. I tried up until late Tuesday night (the project was due on Wednesday) to get a back-up plan. My Motion Picture Language teacher, God bless her, invited me to her graduate class on Tuesday night because they were having a woman come in for an interview, and to film her, for her website. She is a rocket scientist and has created 90,000 scholarships! (Many benefitting girls in China). That's incredible. I don't have a whole lot of information on her unfortunately, because I always have 1,000 things to do.

Tuesday night, after my two classes, I also had rehearsal. I haven't really mentioned this yet, but I auditioned for the Vagina Monologues and got a part! I'm really excited for it. I'll write more on that later, I've got a few funny stories about my audition experience and whatnot. So anyway, I had rehearsal and I suck at saying goodbye or asking to leave early from things, and I'm all about sticking to commitments (on a first come, first serve basis)... and, I'm also very loyal and never want to disappoint anyone. So, I stayed for the whole rehearsal which I thought was the best decision, (while occasionally checking the time, or nervously sweating, hoping my teacher wasn't waiting for me), and then I ran up there after rehearsal around 9pm. My teacher was just like "Oh hey!" and everyone in the class (at least the ones that talked to me) were immediately super friendly and helpful. One guy even gave me his phone number and his card. So profesh. Well, to make this unnecessarily long story short, I don't have much information on the magical interview lady, because I only caught the tail-end of her interview...and it was in Mandarin.

I made plans with my teacher to come to her graduate class again next week, for another interview with someone new, and I might even go to the week after that too, because that week's lady sounds fascinating. Have I mentioned how awesome and accommodating my MPL teacher is? She does so many wonderful favors for me, and gives me so many suggestions, that one day, one of my blog entries might be solely dedicated to her.

So, originally I was going to Georgia's graduate class for last-minute documentary footage that I could turn in for my Editing class, but now I'm just going for fun. WHY? Because friends, I DID film and edit something and I DID have something substantial to turn in on Wednesday! I filmed a short "documentary/mockumentary" on how my actual documentary failed. And while I thought it was clever and funny, I really wasn't expecting my Edit teacher and class to feel the same way. And they did! Well, sort of. They thought it was sad, which wasn't what I was going for, but I could see that. But they liked it, so that's all that matters! And I got permission to run with this idea, so it's going to hopefully be hilarious and awesome when I'm done with it for next week. Alex's documentary was a success too!

From there, my Wednesday just got better and better and better and better. Alex and I went to "Taco Night" with Kevin from our Edit class and Michael from his Sound class, at Kevin's girlfriend Jennifer's apartment. That, in and of itself was fantastic! But wait...

Plus side #1: Jenn has a cat! An incredibly cute, furry feline...with a Star Wars name! (Just like one of my kitties back home, Yoda). I've been so deprived of animal lovin' out here, I was ecstatic!

Plus side #2: Jenn's roommate, Jessica, is in pastry school!

Seriously...does it get any better than that? And she even brought home a delicious treat that we all got to taste. Jenn and Kevin told me to follow her blog for photos and cooking stories. Her blog looks so yummy! Roxanne, I thought you'd be particularly interested in her.

I said I was moving in. They think I'm kidding. I've always lived my life with the motto "All you need is a cat and a pastry", so it makes sense for me to be there.

Then, after taco/pastry/cat night, I came home late. I was the last roommate in, which was a tiny accomplishment for me, because that's hardly ever the case. I checked my facebook, thinking, "Do I really need to do this now?", and I'm SO glad that I did, because I had a message in there from a photography major at my school, asking me to be in a photo shoot she's doing. She said that she was really hoping I was interested, because she thought I'd be perfect for it! This was like the icing on the cake to what surprisingly turned out to be a great day! I emailed her back saying, "Um duh!?", but nicer, and I'm set to do that photo shoot next week. The best part is that these photos are going to be part of an art display in a cafe on Sutter street, and they're on sale! I could be in someone's living room! And just like the ticket sales from Vagina Monologues, the proceeds from the art show will go to benefit La Casa de las Madres, a non-profit organization, helping women and children affected by domestic violence.

I could not be more excited about all of these upcoming events and opportunities. Almost as excited as my friend Lauren was in Sports Authority today, when she spent hundreds of dollars on exercise equipment. Most of her purchases made sense. All but one. The "virtual jumprope". It's called "Cardio Jump". And it's a jumprope...without the rope. Does that make sense to anyone? (If you are a firm believer in "Cardio Jump", please educate me further and I will retract my statement). Because I'm like, what's the point of a rope-less jumprope? Why don't you just jump for free? She said it's more fun this way and has yet to tell me how much she paid for it. As silly as I think this purchase is, I can't even be mad at her for buying it... It's the creators of this product that I want to talk to. What was the idea here?