Well, well...two of my Profs have shown their hand vis a vis my grades for this semester, and one is a surprise. My Philosophy 20 Prof didn't tell me, with tongue in cheek, that I could just "phone in" my final exam like the History 11 Prof did last semester, but he said "it would take a really crummy essay to lower your final grade to a B." The surprise is my Education 203 Prof. I was fully expecting to have to content myself with a B or a C this class, but she told me "you could pull your grade down to a B if you don't provide me a decent Reading Log entry," which was quite a surprise. (She insists on people writing Reading Log entries on every chapter from every book...I read fast so the system slows me down to the point of total frustration. This is why I haven't done many of them, and every entry I have done hasn't been up to what she wants, which adds even more frustration.) So yeah, if I play my cards right I could have another semester's worth of decent grades, even if the History 86 final exam doesn't go well.

Another sure A this semester is PE630, like I mentioned in an earlier post. I'm chilling in the Lions' Den cybercafe now blogging this as I wait for the Fitness Center to open.

Can I make a 3.5 or better GPA this semester? I am not entirely sure. But the odds are looking a lot better.

Speaking of health, I found an interesting story just now. It seems that not everybody is 100% enthused with the Atkins diet...this Florida businessman is suing because he believes the diet gave him heart disease. While it is true that the folks who are helping the guy sue are pushing their own agenda, I have a sneaky suspicion that this is not the first Atkins-related lawsuit we will see in the future. A good friend of mine was playing around with high-protein, low carb diets well before the current craze began, and he now has lost most of his eyesight due to Diabetes related retinopathy, and can no longer play guitar due to Diabetes related neuropathy. Sure, the guy was quite large to begin with, and had been large all his life. But the diet didn't do him any good. He never lost the weight, whatever diet he tried.

I have not been really losing much weight from the current increase in activity. Right now I'm down about 5 pounds from the plateau weight I had been lugging around for the past few years, and I'm down about 12 pounds from my heaviest. However, my clothes fit better, I feel physically stronger, I'm not as likely to get winded from activity, and overall I am feeling healthier. I did my step test on Monday, which was something I could not complete when I started there. My next trick: get some sort of routine together I can do at home so I don't just let myself go after I'm finished putting in the required hours for that A grade.

I wrote on my health plans in my old journal last November. I still stand by what I wrote there, in spades. I think the most important thing one can remember about food is this -- I'm not sure where I picked up this truism, but I think it's pretty good: "Don't count calories, make calories count." What I mean by this is that if you put good quality food in your body and don't consume too much of it at a time, you are most of the way to eating right. Even at so-called "Junk Food" establishments, most places have good alternative menu items that you can eat without being upset at yourself later. And exercise is key. I never thought that after having Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome in 1991 to 1994 I would be able to exercise with as much intensity as I do now, but I'm surprising myself a lot.