Too-frequent weigh-ins can sabotage any diet efforts, because a woman\’s weight is a mysterious, jumpy, undependable thing that does not follow any known laws of nature. Over-weighing would lead to stress. Stress would slow down my metabolism, which was already prone to sleeping in late.
Applying to college was not this complicated 25(ish) years ago. I think I took a PSAT. I know I took the SAT. I took it one time. I did relatively well. I got into UCLA. But times have changed. If I packaged up my high school transcripts and SAT score today, UCLA probably would laugh my application right out of the admissions building.
No one deserves a spa experience more than you do. Just picture it — warm tubs scented with essential oils, invigorating body scrubs, refreshing botanical blend face masks smoothed on in soothing circular massaging motions and misty showers with luscious gels.
John F. Kennedy once said, \”When written in Chinese, the word \’crisis\’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.\”
Life is full of change — in fact, one of the only things we can predict and count on in life is that things won\’t stay the same. For many of us, this is exemplified in our work. Indeed, statistics suggest that most adults will experience five to 12 careers or job changes in a lifetime.
Post-Bar Mitzvah Stress Disorder (PBMSD) usually follows a case of Pre-Bar Mitzvah Stress Disorder. This is characterized by speed-dialing your caterer several times daily until you actually hear him chewing antacids while you speak; zipping around so frantically from errand to errand that you have no time to eat anything other than large brownies in the car (perversely, this still causes weight gain), and bursting into tears with no warning because your little boy is no longer a little boy but a newly minted teen who has the audacity to catapult into puberty before your very eyes.
Moving from a familiar home and letting go of things owned for years can feel like an additional loss. It\’s not just the loss of the objects that has an impact; it\’s the connection with the past that these objects symbolize.
Rabbi Benjamin Blech, author of \”Taking Stock: A Spiritual Guide to Rising Above Life\’s Financial Ups and Downs\” (AMACOM, 2003), wonders mostly how he ever got so frenzied about money — both its gain, and its loss. Of course, he is not alone. Perhaps you didn\’t sink your nest egg into dot-com stocks, but chances are very good that money — or lack of it — sometimes throws you off kilter.
Often I find myself staring at walls or lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, blank-minded. But I am not one who has the luxury to be blank-minded. There is too much to do — not by will, but by force.
Perry Factor looks like an ideal college applicant. The Harvard-Westlake senior scored 1530 on his SAT and maintains a 4.036 (weighted) GPA. He\’s volunteered for years at his former elementary school, is a production editor on the high school paper, sings in the school choir and is on the jujitsu team. Nevertheless, Factor said he\’s \”not entirely confident\” about getting into his top college choice, Rice University in Texas.
\”There are always horror stories about looking like the perfect candidate and not getting admitted,\” he said.
Like Factor, teens around the nation — and their parents — are finding an increasingly competitive atmosphere for college applicants.
\”There are more students applying than ever before … yet there are not necessarily more spaces,\” said Tami Gelb, college counselor at Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles (YULA).
I was drinking a martini on the terrace of the King David Hotel when I started counting sirens. An ultra-Orthodox social worker had told me earlier in the week that that is what people often do here, count sirens. One siren is probably a heart attack. Two might be a fire. If you hear three, you had best turn on the news.
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