Don't Sell Yourself Short

Hey guys!

I hope your weekend is going well. Mine is great! My mom's out here and we've been having a really good time. I picked her up at the airport last night and this morning I made us breakfast. My fridge was pretty dang bare since didn't manage to make it to the grocery store yesterday. Get this--I was out of cinnamon!!! That's a huge deal for me cause I use a ton of cinnamon on everything.

So apple oats this morning were high on the cocoa powder and sans cinnamon. They were still good, but they weren't stellar. It's a good reminder how important cinnamon is! Haha



After breakfast, we went shopping at Target and then the grocery store. We hit up the restaurant Green for lunch, since it's one of my mom's faves out here.

I had the Jerk Tofu Salad:



It was delicious! I love how they cook their tofu. I do wish that their "big" size salad was bigger, though ;)

My mom had the Thai Peanut bowl with noodles:



She loved it and I had a taste, too. Again, their tofu is deliciously chewy and the glaze was really flavorful.

Then we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens. I took a lot of pictures:











My Mom next to this freaking huge cactus:



My favorite:



It looks like some kind of alien thing!

I saw a bunny:






They also had a cool butterfly exhibit:







But one of the best things of having my mom here was that I got an amazing home-cooked meal! My mom made tuna steaks with a soy sauce and sesame oil glaze, roasted half a squash, and a ginger tangerine brown rice. I made us salads ;)




I filled the squash with some of the rice mixture, and then I put half the tuna over my salad :) It was a delicious meal! Thanks, mom :D

At first I didn't want my mom to come out cause of the plane ticket money. But it's actually a lot easier this year since she can stay with me (no roommate issues) and doesn't need to book a hotel. And I also have a car this year, so we don't need a rental car. It's been really refreshing to have her out here, and I'm super glad she came :)

Oh, I also have major news!! So, for my Kinesiology degree I need to take pre-calculus. I had taken general math when I was a music major, because that was all that was required for the Arts degree. But Kin actually has a lot of math in it. I've never been awesome at math. I had a huge science AND math roadblock in middle through high school--I didn't think I could do it. And since I wanted to be a harpist, I used that as my excuse. I said I just wasn't cut out to do science or math.

It took falling in love with exercise science to overcome those self-imposed limits. And I learned I really could be good at science--my old nemesis chemistry included! I sucked at chem in high school but I took Chem 101 last year in college, loved it, and got an A. Go figure.

So I had confidence that I could do well in pre-calc, but there was a problem. I had to take a timed unified math placement test and get a pretty high score in order to qualify for the class. I only had 2 chances, or else I had to take Alegebra at a community college--and receive no credit--before I could take the class. Um, hell to the no.

My adviser was pretty adamant that I needed to take pre-calc next semester, but I hadn't taken the placement test. I took it Senior year in high school for my freshman math, but I scored relatively low on it--too low for pre-calc, at least.

So Thursday night, I decided to just get it taken care of. I spent 3.5 hours going over the online refresher workshop, and working through the practice test. I have pages and pages of problems and formulas written out to prove it! ;) I managed to get 87/132 on the practice test, and I needed 75+ to get into pre-calc. I decided to take a leap and take the real online test, since it was fresh in my head (even though it was 10 pm, haha). I got 93/132! Way over the 75 cutoff. I haven't been that proud of myself in a long time! Math has always been a huge mental roadblock for me, and it felt great to finally get through those barriers.

So that was super long, but I wanted to share. And I also wanted to say that you should never let roadblocks like that get in the way of your dreams. You're capable of a lot more than you know! A lot of the "limits" we put on ourselves aren't our actual limits. It's easy to say "oh, I can't do ____." And if you really want something, you'll find a way to get through the barriers. Even though I was scared of math, I wasn't going to let it stop me from being a kinesiology major. And I know that sometimes we do have actual physical (and mental) limitations--if you've had multiple knee surgeries and a subsequent loss of mobility, you probably won't ever be able to do an Ironman. But don't sell yourself short. If you've always wanted to play the violin but you just aren't "musical," just give it a shot and don't hold back! I bet you'd surprise yourself.

Ok, sorry for the random pep talk ;) But I feel that a lot of the time we place all these false limits on ourselves and our abilities. I went into music because I did think I wanted to be a harpist, but I also thought that music was the only thing I could do. Seriously. I thought I was only good at music and would only ever be good at music, so I had no choice. Obviously things turned out a little differently ;)

So for the QOTD:

Q: Is there anything you've wanted to do, but felt like something was holding you back? What was it?

Like I said, at first I thought I couldn't be any kind of science major cause I just wasn't good at math. Not true! I was also afraid of going to new exercise classes, cause I thought I wouldn't be good at the skill--like kickboxing, step, and bosu. They've been challenging, but even when I mess up a bit, it was never the catastrophe I feared in my head ;) And I know that for many things, the limits are valid--I want to eventually horseback ride again, but the whole time, money, and location thing is kinda stopping me ;) I'll do it eventually, though! What about you?