no joke

Obviously, I'm still in nostalgic mode. I showed you photos from 2006, 2007, and today, I bring you 2008. I was in the Philippines for three months conducting field research. This photo is of me with some of the country's most amazing scholars. We had dinner at a restaurant in Malate and chatted it up until the wee hours of the night. (If I recall correctly, we met at 7pm and I got hope at about 3am.) It was amazing!
I wish this advertisement was a joke. But it's not. In case you don't know what my research is about, this ad has something to do with it. I look at perceptions of skin color and beauty among Filipino communities. In particular, I examine women's beauty culture and such. This is why I have to spend my time scanning the net, flipping through magazines, and interviewing people about beauty and skin color matters. You can find more info here and here.

In other news, here's an article about obesity and brain function. My friend Loan also sent me this article about the police force in Bangladesh being given lessons on grooming and such. Enjoy!

Warm-up
TWO rounds of:
400 meter run
500 meter row

CrossFit One World WOD: "Death By Ten Meters"
Mark off ten meters (33'). Put a marker at each end. Set a one minute running clock. During the first minute, run one ten meter run. During second minute, run two ten meter runs. During third, do three runs. Continue until you can no longer finish the prescrbied amount of runs in any minute.

Joanne's Final Count - 12 rounds

And then...
1.1 mile run

Notes (to myself) about this workout: As usual, I was the lowest count posted on the board. I know. I know. I know I said that I would stop looking at the board. I try. I swear I try. But I can't help it. Speed running isn't my thing. I know it and I accept it. When I came in, I hoped to get at least 10 rounds, hopefully 12, maybe pushing it to 15. 12 was a gift and I'm satisfied.

I've been trying to keep up with my fried food challenge. As I mentioned before, I give myself a weekly cheat day. This just helps keep my sanity. Admittedly, my disgust for burpees has been working because even when I do cheat, it don't all out cheat. I'm finding that I eat fried food when I'm with company. Eating is a social thing for me, hence the fried food. (Okay. That made no sense.) Anyway... I did have some extra fried food and technically, I owe myself burpees. But I HATE burpees! So I decided to run 1.1 miles instead. It sounds lame. But after running in the warm-up, and then running for the WOD, I figured running an extra 1.1 miles was torture enough. It was. I think I'm even now.

For the record, I think eating is a daily issue. Right now, the buzz at the box has been gluten free, dairy free eating. I've looked up the information and and slowly assessing things. I do know I should try to stay off the dairy. My Asian genes are kicking in and well, I'm going to have to make friends with soy milk. I'm sure I'll have to cut down on the cheese too. Gluten free sounds appealing to me, but the transition is going to be hard. Again, I'm going to have to give this some thought.

Finally, for those of you who need CrossFit inspiration, I leave you with this... (insert a chuckle here)