So, it’s been a somewhat eventful year in my life. I figured that it was only appropriate to make one last blog entry for 2007 that details some of the highlights that immediately come to mind.
(1) Uhm, I moved to Zambia.
(2) Depsite needing a mercy pass to stay in the program and the unfortunate reality that I think my advisor is no longer returning my e-mails, I completed my master’s degree in three years. Yahtzee!
(3) I absolutely destroyed my previous record for longest time in a relationship. This unfortunately implies that I will no longer be able to tell people that my longest relationship lasted 6 months during the 6th grade and involved a girl named Clarissa with whom I only spoke to twice for a total of 30 seconds.
(4) I defeated Tim for the 3rd consecutive year in NFL playoff handicapping picks. (More on this in the upcoming days as I begin making a ridiculous amount of posts about stuff no one will care about…)
All of these pale in comparison, though, to the #1 highlight of 2007; I not only met, but destroyed my yearlong goal to drink less than 50 sodas all year.
Prior to the start of 2007, I may have had what some people may consider a ‘slight’ addiction to soda. Averaging around six a day, friends would normally be able to determine the recency of my last soda depending on the mood I was in. My refrigerator would frequently be stocked with 100+ sodas around the holidays as I took advantage of the grocery store sales. This would normally last me about a month.. Not surprisingly, I started to develop stomach problems around Christmas 2006. These stomach pains, which I can best describe as a feeling of acidic imbalance likely compounded by holiday stress and travel, were an annoyance when I wasn’t drinking soda and nearly unbearable when I was drinking soda. It was at this point that I realized I should cut back on soda until I at least started feeling better. As the new year approached, however, I made the foolish resolution that I would limit my soda intake to 50 or less for the entire year. It was an arbitrary number that allowed me to still drink some soda (going an entire year without soda is just a ridiculous idea), but still greatly reduce the amount I was drinking.
12 months later, I am ridiculously proud to report that I made it through the year having had only 13 sodas. The sodas were, in near chronological order:
(1) Lindsey and Mark try to find Alkai Beach (mid January).
(2) Gonzaga v Memphis in Spokane (mid February)
(3) Mark’s 25th Birthday (late February)
(4) NCAA Tournament Play-in Game aka Mark’s Favorite Day of the Year (mid-march)
(5) Panda Express at the Mall Food Court (April?)
(6) Mariners game with Dustin, Heather, and Lindsey (May?)
(7) Movie at the Theater off Stone Way (July?)
(8) Mariners game with Rob, Jesicca, and Linsdsey (August)
(9) Mariners game with Siobhan (August?)
(10) Victoria, Canada (August)
(11) First Steak Dinner at Blue Nile Inn in Zambia (September)
(12) Pot luck BBQ at Marine House in Zambia (October)
(13) Mizzou versus Kansas watchparty at 3 a.m. (November)
A few notes about these 13 sodas. Depriving myself of soda for an entire year has served as an excellent reminder to me about just how amazing coke tastes. There is a reason why I can pinpoint every time I drank coke this year. It tastes really good. I really hope people don’t take it granted like I did and if you do that this blog post will serve as a notice that you shouldn’t take it for granted. I’d also like everyone to notice that 3 of the 13 times were at baseball games. This was just well thought out on my part; I ordered the largest soda humanly possible, claimed I was going to share it, and then argue that it should only count as one drink. I also think it’s absolutely incredible that only four times during the entire year (#1, #5, #7, and #10) was I stressed to the point of needing a soda.
A few notes about what I drank that was non-soda. The majority of the time, I drank apple juice. I want to give a quick plug for Old Orchard brand concentrated juices. For $1.25, you can make about 48 ounces of 100% apple juice with slight variations (apple passion mango, apple raspberry, apple cherry, etc.) that will be enough juice for the entire day. While still more expensive than soda (which averages to about 15 cents a can and thus 75 cents a day), I never really got sick of it and figured it to be an acceptable alternative. My other main alternative was Country Time Lemonade. It was also an acceptable alternative, but I wasn’t able to drink it for an extended amount of time.
I have to admit that I did not realize how many situations you put yourself in during the course of the year where soda is the logical and pretty much only acceptable option as a beverage. At most restaurants, like McDonalds, I was able to resort to a highly-sugary but non-carbonated drink like Orange HI-C. At some of the classier restaurants, they will offer real lemonade and if you are lucky it will be strawberry or raspberry flavored. Unfortunately, many places just don’t have good non-soda options. A lot offer Minute Maid Lemonade, either from a can or a soda fountain, which tastes absolutely miserable; I mistakenly ordered this a few times when I was expecting real lemonade before I wised up and started asking preliminary questions before ordering. I'd rather be kicked in the face than drink that garbage. A few times, I resorted to drinking beer (which I eventually discovered was in fact carbonated and violated my goal of drinking less than 50 carbonated beverages a year. I’m not sure if I drank more than 50 beers/ tonic water mixed drinks over the year, but I decided to not count these. I don’t even like drinking alcohol and do it just to be drinking something, so I don’t think it should be categorized with the delicious sodas) just so I wouldn’t have to drink a soda.
I’ve also learned that it is absolutely impossible to drink large amounts of orange juice, any fruit that is pureed rather than squeezed into juice, or flavored ice tea at a rate of 48 ounces a day for an extended time period. It’s impossible.
Not drinking sodas in Zambia has been a blessing and a curse. There is a much more limited drink selection here, especially with the lack of frozen concentrate juices. I pretty much have two options: Apple or ‘Secrets of the Valley’, a delicious blend of cherry, apple, and grape. I still buy an inordinate amount of juice, but not as much as I used to. I’m resigned to drinking more water. This probably isn’t a bad thing, considering sodas run about 75 cents a pop or $3 for a 2 litre here. That might get kinda expensive at 6 a day.
I still haven’t decided what I am going to do for 2008. I am definitely planning on drinking a ton tonight in celebration of meeting my goal as we watch college football. I’m torn. On one hand, I am really stubborn and don’t want to cave in just because the year is over; I kinda wanna continue this quest and see how much more radically I can deprive myself. On the other hand, coke kinda tastes good, I’ve lost about 10 pounds since I’ve been here and need to find some way to put weight back on, and I did receive a giant container of Country Time Lemonade as a Christmas present from home….
(1) Uhm, I moved to Zambia.
(2) Depsite needing a mercy pass to stay in the program and the unfortunate reality that I think my advisor is no longer returning my e-mails, I completed my master’s degree in three years. Yahtzee!
(3) I absolutely destroyed my previous record for longest time in a relationship. This unfortunately implies that I will no longer be able to tell people that my longest relationship lasted 6 months during the 6th grade and involved a girl named Clarissa with whom I only spoke to twice for a total of 30 seconds.
(4) I defeated Tim for the 3rd consecutive year in NFL playoff handicapping picks. (More on this in the upcoming days as I begin making a ridiculous amount of posts about stuff no one will care about…)
All of these pale in comparison, though, to the #1 highlight of 2007; I not only met, but destroyed my yearlong goal to drink less than 50 sodas all year.
Prior to the start of 2007, I may have had what some people may consider a ‘slight’ addiction to soda. Averaging around six a day, friends would normally be able to determine the recency of my last soda depending on the mood I was in. My refrigerator would frequently be stocked with 100+ sodas around the holidays as I took advantage of the grocery store sales. This would normally last me about a month.. Not surprisingly, I started to develop stomach problems around Christmas 2006. These stomach pains, which I can best describe as a feeling of acidic imbalance likely compounded by holiday stress and travel, were an annoyance when I wasn’t drinking soda and nearly unbearable when I was drinking soda. It was at this point that I realized I should cut back on soda until I at least started feeling better. As the new year approached, however, I made the foolish resolution that I would limit my soda intake to 50 or less for the entire year. It was an arbitrary number that allowed me to still drink some soda (going an entire year without soda is just a ridiculous idea), but still greatly reduce the amount I was drinking.
12 months later, I am ridiculously proud to report that I made it through the year having had only 13 sodas. The sodas were, in near chronological order:
(1) Lindsey and Mark try to find Alkai Beach (mid January).
(2) Gonzaga v Memphis in Spokane (mid February)
(3) Mark’s 25th Birthday (late February)
(4) NCAA Tournament Play-in Game aka Mark’s Favorite Day of the Year (mid-march)
(5) Panda Express at the Mall Food Court (April?)
(6) Mariners game with Dustin, Heather, and Lindsey (May?)
(7) Movie at the Theater off Stone Way (July?)
(8) Mariners game with Rob, Jesicca, and Linsdsey (August)
(9) Mariners game with Siobhan (August?)
(10) Victoria, Canada (August)
(11) First Steak Dinner at Blue Nile Inn in Zambia (September)
(12) Pot luck BBQ at Marine House in Zambia (October)
(13) Mizzou versus Kansas watchparty at 3 a.m. (November)
A few notes about these 13 sodas. Depriving myself of soda for an entire year has served as an excellent reminder to me about just how amazing coke tastes. There is a reason why I can pinpoint every time I drank coke this year. It tastes really good. I really hope people don’t take it granted like I did and if you do that this blog post will serve as a notice that you shouldn’t take it for granted. I’d also like everyone to notice that 3 of the 13 times were at baseball games. This was just well thought out on my part; I ordered the largest soda humanly possible, claimed I was going to share it, and then argue that it should only count as one drink. I also think it’s absolutely incredible that only four times during the entire year (#1, #5, #7, and #10) was I stressed to the point of needing a soda.
A few notes about what I drank that was non-soda. The majority of the time, I drank apple juice. I want to give a quick plug for Old Orchard brand concentrated juices. For $1.25, you can make about 48 ounces of 100% apple juice with slight variations (apple passion mango, apple raspberry, apple cherry, etc.) that will be enough juice for the entire day. While still more expensive than soda (which averages to about 15 cents a can and thus 75 cents a day), I never really got sick of it and figured it to be an acceptable alternative. My other main alternative was Country Time Lemonade. It was also an acceptable alternative, but I wasn’t able to drink it for an extended amount of time.
I have to admit that I did not realize how many situations you put yourself in during the course of the year where soda is the logical and pretty much only acceptable option as a beverage. At most restaurants, like McDonalds, I was able to resort to a highly-sugary but non-carbonated drink like Orange HI-C. At some of the classier restaurants, they will offer real lemonade and if you are lucky it will be strawberry or raspberry flavored. Unfortunately, many places just don’t have good non-soda options. A lot offer Minute Maid Lemonade, either from a can or a soda fountain, which tastes absolutely miserable; I mistakenly ordered this a few times when I was expecting real lemonade before I wised up and started asking preliminary questions before ordering. I'd rather be kicked in the face than drink that garbage. A few times, I resorted to drinking beer (which I eventually discovered was in fact carbonated and violated my goal of drinking less than 50 carbonated beverages a year. I’m not sure if I drank more than 50 beers/ tonic water mixed drinks over the year, but I decided to not count these. I don’t even like drinking alcohol and do it just to be drinking something, so I don’t think it should be categorized with the delicious sodas) just so I wouldn’t have to drink a soda.
I’ve also learned that it is absolutely impossible to drink large amounts of orange juice, any fruit that is pureed rather than squeezed into juice, or flavored ice tea at a rate of 48 ounces a day for an extended time period. It’s impossible.
Not drinking sodas in Zambia has been a blessing and a curse. There is a much more limited drink selection here, especially with the lack of frozen concentrate juices. I pretty much have two options: Apple or ‘Secrets of the Valley’, a delicious blend of cherry, apple, and grape. I still buy an inordinate amount of juice, but not as much as I used to. I’m resigned to drinking more water. This probably isn’t a bad thing, considering sodas run about 75 cents a pop or $3 for a 2 litre here. That might get kinda expensive at 6 a day.
I still haven’t decided what I am going to do for 2008. I am definitely planning on drinking a ton tonight in celebration of meeting my goal as we watch college football. I’m torn. On one hand, I am really stubborn and don’t want to cave in just because the year is over; I kinda wanna continue this quest and see how much more radically I can deprive myself. On the other hand, coke kinda tastes good, I’ve lost about 10 pounds since I’ve been here and need to find some way to put weight back on, and I did receive a giant container of Country Time Lemonade as a Christmas present from home….
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