Buster McLeod posted a photo:

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Me and my sweet, handsome husband to be at Madonnathon!

When I first heard of Plato's idea in the Phaedo that learning is recalling, I thought it was crazy. How could we have once known it all and then forgotten? However, walk into a kindergarten and ask who can draw a horse. I bet all the hands go up. Walk into a middle school classroom and ask the same question and I bet only half the students raise a hand. Ask a group of high schoolers who can draw a horse and maybe one person will say yes. And I bet it will be a heck of a great rendering of a horse. How did everyone forget that they could draw?

The other night I was reading a bed time story to my five year old daughter. It was called "Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail" about a model and muse Picasso found one summer in the south of France. My daughter liked the description of the artist's studio and the life Picasso led. When I was done reading I asked, "Would you like to be an artist when you grow up?"

"Papa," she said, "I already am an artist!"

Starting today, I too am going to try a month of health. Just to see what THAT’S like. Here’s my list of activities:

1. Green tea instead of coffee. I drink a lot of coffee, and also a lot of sugar and half-and-half because I splurge on mochas when I feel luxurious.
2. Drink a lot more water. I’m keeping a glass of water by me all the time while at work, and at home. I’m drinking at least 3 or 4 more glasses of water than I usually do.
3. No hangovers. I don’t really get hangovers, but I’m talking about even feeling spacey and spongey the next day. I think this’ll mean just drinking with a slower pace. I don’t want to set a drink limit because I don’t think that really has anything to do with it. Something like one drink every 45 minutes would be a lot more reasonable for me at this point. Especially since I have so many reasons to celebrate this month.
4. Go to the gym twice a week. I’ve gotten off the gym track since vacation a couple weeks ago, time to get back on.
5. Optimize for healthy. (instead of tasty or cheap) This one has been fun so far. Most of the time this means choosing the healthy vegetarian option. Rather than just not eating meat, which might lead me to eat unhealthy vegetarian, I’d rather optimize for healthy regardless of whether or not there’s meat in it. This is mostly so I can continue eating sushi, I think.
6. Lose 5 pounds. I gained some weight on my San Fran/rafting trip (because the guides supplied us with so much tasty food), and while I don’t necessarily need to lose the weight, I feel like I should lose some of the fat in exchange for muscle if possible.
7. Keep track of my breathing and heart rate. Only tangentially related to the health aspect, I’ve been trying to do this in order to know what emotions I’m feeling. Knowing whether or not you’re stressed out is a lot more difficult than just noticing if you’re breathing faster or have an increased heart rate even though you’re sitting at a desk typing.
8. Document rule-breaking. I’m going to peer-pressure myself into following rules by documenting when I break them. As long as I’m following them I can be lazy and not report back.

This reminds me of my Mecember project in 2003. It was a crucial turning-point month for me to realize how easy it was to make big changes all of a sudden. In a lot of ways, lessons from that month started the ball rolling for a lot of other things (changing jobs, moving, fixing relationships, etc). It’ll be interesting to see if I can rejuvenate some of that healthy momentum now when it could be said that my lifestyle is a little more crazy than it was back then.

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There are 7 money-related goals in the top 100 most popluar goals on 43 Things:

1. Save money 5,209 people
2. Buy a house 5,026 people
3. Get out of debt 4,200 people
4. Start my own business 3,436 people
5. Become financially independent 2,217 people
6. Win the lottery 1,873 people
7. Work because I like to, not because I have to 1,778 people

What kind of money-related goals do you have?

k-star posted a photo:

k-star posted a photo:

k-star posted a photo:

• Get Rich Slowly » 27 Money Tips for College Students
  (tags: school, money)

erikbenson posted a photo:

Yup, this is what we actually wore!

Guess who’s back. Back again.