I'm going to talk about a time where someone dropped hints on me that I just wouldn't believe really. And it goes back - this all kinda ties - what a early 2000s week - ties back to my job, my first job, at the pool house kitchen at a country club on the east side of the state. There was a girl there who taught tennis lessons, she was my age, and I was smitten the day I saw her, and the more I got to know about her, the more she knocked me off my feet. And you know, it was just gonna be a thing where it's like, “Yeah, she's amazing, period. End of story.” She seemed so far out of my league, so amazingly far out of my league. She was so intelligent, so bright, so like weirdly funny, and she was amazing in almost every way. She was so out of my league that I just never gave anything any kind of thought. And one day we we struck up a conversation over leftover birthday cake from a children's birthday party we hosted at the club, and I was super nervous and probably very awkward and whatever. I can't remember really what we talked about much, but I do know that, you know, shortly after our discussion she ran into me and, you know, asked me if I was going to the Fourth of July fireworks celebration at the club, and I mentioned that I was considering that and she basically was like, "You should go with me. Here's my phone number." And she wrote down her phone number for me and gave it to me, and I was like, "Yeah, that's nice of her. What a - she seems like a nice person." And so I called her with much trepidation, and we set up a time to meet at the Fourth of July celebration and turns out she brought like four friends, and so maybe I had for a moment, maybe I thought that perhaps she liked me, but once I saw the friends show up, I was like, "Oh, this is not a date at all. That was the stupidest thing you could have ever thought. This is just a big group hangout thing." And plus, she brought a guy too among her groups of friends. And so yeah, so then we…

Note: This diary contains a discussion of restrictive eating. So I'll continue what I was talking about with my relationship with food. Yeah, I’ve recently I just been noticing that the changes I've been making and choosing more whole foods, even though they may be higher calorie, is giving me an opportunity to reconnect with my body and check in with my body, and feel just like the sensations of fullness and hunger, in a way that I honestly have not in a while. And so that feels really promising for me since it's something that I've kind of struggled with for a while, especially like since early college I would say. So maybe about six or seven years. Yeah, and I feel like through this process, I have gained some weight over the last year, and it's starting to level out, which is awesome. I don't feel like I've noticed too many changes in my weight lately. But yeah, I'm just noticing that the changes I'm making, on a psychological level, in not restricting food and, you know, not seeing food as good or evil has actually given me the mental and physical satisfaction that I have been trying to find from my food. So yeah, that feels really good. I feel like I've got a lot less stress around eating. Which like I mentioned earlier, you know, obviously you have to do it for survival. So this was kind of a big deal for me and I'm really excited about it.

"What is a famous person or an important person I met that turned out to not be that great?" I'll answer it actually as a famous person or an important person I met that turned out to be that great. I was living in Rhode Island, and it was such a weird way that this happened, but I was in a meeting and somebody was asking me, it was like a external partner, you know, "Who am I?" Kind of a little bit about myself, and it was pretty standard that people might, like, prod about your professional or educational background. So the person asked me, you know, something about what degree do I have. And so I said, "Oh, I have a master's in public health." And usually that's the end of the conversation but this specific person was like, "Oh, like, what specifically did you focus on or what did you study?" And so I said, "Oh, like, global health, uh, infectious disease." And the person was like, "Oh, have you heard of Paul Farmer?" Who was like my idol and I was like, "Yes, I've absolutely heard of Paul Farmer." And they were like, "Oh, cool. Well, my husband coordinates some sort of speaking engagements at one of the local universities and, like, Paul Farmer's gonna be there tonight. Do you want to go?" And I was like, "Oh my God. Yes. I absolutely do." So they gave me instructions, and I don't know, got me a ticket, which was so generous, and I went, and it was him and then I forget the name of the other person that was there, but he was part of, I think it was a two-person team, that discovered the virus that causes HIV. So they were talking about global health just generally and some of their own personal and professional experiences.  And afterwards, like so many of the students just left. I was like, "Oh my gosh, like why aren't they trying to talk to Paul Farmer?" So I got in line, and I didn't have anything to say other than just like - 'cause really, it was reading about Paul Farmer and Mountains Beyond Mountains that got me into public health where I just thought, like, "Yes. This is what I want to be doing." So I just wanted to say that to him which I'm sure he hears a lot. And…

I was just hoping to briefly share my condolences to the Michigan Diaries team and Michigan State Community today. Just seeing some really tough news that I, you know, can only imagine the kind of feelings that everyone's going through in the active shooter situation. So I, yeah, just wanted to offer, you know, some more words of support. Definitely have the team and the Spartans on my mind. And I saw that class schedules and sports schedules and stuff are canceled. 100% understandable. You know, I can keep making recordings. I think the planets will wait for Michigan Diaries whenever you're ready. You know, if we gotta take a week off, you know, I'll still be here. So. Or if you want to continue the pace of normalcy, I would understand that as well. Yeah. Just I have to imagine really, really tough day for everyone in East Lansing. So my thoughts and prayers to the Spartan Community today.

"The Roman gods had the power to change form whenever they wanted. What's one thing about yourself that you'd never want to change?" My nose. For a long time, I was embarrassed by my nose. It's big and bulbous. And I was always embarrassed by it. I thought - you know, and it has all these blackheads on it. And it has this little line of blackheads too, right above the bulbous part, on the, like, straight part that, like, cuts it. With little like - it's very noticeable. It was very noticeable when I was a teenager, not as noticeable now, and my family used to call it the equator. And I was so embarrassed by it, so embarrassed by it. And then my wela died and I was very - it was very sad. It was a hard time for me. You know, I had moved out of my parents’ house my senior year into her home to help her. She was going through dialysis, and it was... It was hard. We were very close. And we went to - up to Michigan. I think it was, like, that next summer. And I had talked to some of my - some of her relatives, my relatives, her sister specifically [name], who is still living, and we talked about my nose - and they call it up there, her sisters call it a strawberry nose because not only does my wela have it, but all of her sisters have it. It's a [family name] nose, they call it a strawberry [family name] nose. Because it’s bulbous like a strawberry and it has the little black dots, very typical [family name] nose. This made me feel so connected to her. You know, I feel bad for people who have, like, this body dysmorphia where they need to utilize plastic surgery to change these things about themselves. Because as a person who's loved by her family and who loves her family, I can look in the mirror and look at certain features on my body and say, “That I got from this person, that I got from this person.” And it feels good. It just feels right. And it's comforting knowing that she's still alive in me. Not only in her stories and her memory and her morals, but like in my appearance 'cause I look so much like her. So,…