Money

Who doesn't. Come on now. Be honest. Even if you don't consciously think you do, you do.

"How much is this?"

"How much could I save if I did this?"

"One day I want to buy this."

"Ooohhhhhhh. Waitrose Sausage Roll reduced to 20p!"

Especially as a student. We're always penny pinching. Seeing how far we can stretch our money is practically our occupation, if it weren't for all the studying we are meant to do. What's the lowest quality of product you are willing to go for in order to save money? 11p instant noodles? Chicken nuggets now with 10% more chicken?! (Now 55% chicken instead of 45%! Yeah, makes you think, right!) Where can we save money in order to be able to spend a bit more on alcohol?!

It's funny how differently we think of money. Money often means other things. A recent conversation with some of my esteemed fellow students went something along the lines of:

Fellow Student 1- "I can earn about £300 a week if I get that summer job! That's £600 in a fortnight!"

Me- "That's a one way flight to Chicago."

Fellow Student 2- "Think of all the chocolate bars you can buy with that!"

What we were all thinking- "Think of all the nights out you can have with that!"

By subconsciously thinking of money in other terms, we are all obsessing about it, we just don't realize it. We all need it to get the majority of the things we want. I didn't say it was a bad obsession. It's a necessary one if you have dreams and aspirations, which we all do, they're good things to have. Just so long as money doesn't become the primary obsession, or the foundation to an obsession with power.

To me, money = travel. Of course it does nowadays. My daydreams are spent planning my next adventure! To get there though, I must first get off my lazy ass and get me some dinero!

I leave you with the words of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba fame: "Money, money, money!"

American Adventure?
(Picture from this website) 

Football

I play it. I watch it. I dream it (can be dangerous. I tend to wake up to intense pain in my feet from kicking walls, draws, people etc.). If it was air, I would breathe it. If it was edible, I would eat it. To me it is like water, I cannot survive without it. Aka., it's my life. As obsessions are. 

It's hard though. After just over 7 years now of playing (3 of those playing for 2 teams at the same time, 2 years in a centre of excellence. 6 years dedication to, and captaining of my school team), my knees ache, my ankles ruined, hips dodgy, lower back pain, muscles tight as a drum and shoulders that just do whatever the hell they want! Not to mention the hours of social life lost to training, restricted diet and closely monitored exercise programmes. Would I change all of that? No. It's a drug to me. The high of winning. The being part of a team. The massive adrenaline rush before a game. The total sense of inner peace and being able to completely shut out the outside world that I only get when I'm on the field. The huge exercise high. That huge, beautiful exercise high. It's therapy. 

I've played 2 games in 7 months now, due to various factors, and those both coming in the last 3 weeks. One less than 48 hours after stepping off the plane from New Zealand! It was a weird 7 months. I mean, I had to fill this massive void in my life. But when you're in New Zealand for most of those months, it's not hard to find distraction  (although some of my distractions were training for my return to playing when I got back). I thought, before I went, I wouldn't cope. Indeed, I did buy a football within 2 weeks of being there, but that's not the point. It was more of a safety blanket. I survived. That's reassuring. One day the aforementioned aches and pains in my life are going to become too much and I might have to put being able to walk in later life above playing. It's sad, but when that day comes, I'm going to have to hang up my boots for good, walk away from this obsession, leave pretty much everything I know behind. Go cold turkey? No. In my decision to do Exercise and Sports Science at uni, I think a very small subconscious part of me was probably making contingency plans so I can keep a part of football in my life for when that dreaded day comes.

But for now, I will continue to be completely, totally and entirely devoted to my obsession with football.

Age 14(ish)

Eminem

Hey! Hear me out, hear me out! His music, not him (although, yes, I would definitely not say no!)

I love him. I do. A modern musical genius, if you will allow me to indulge myself. No, I have not gone mad, I really do think so! 

Eminem's songs (well, some of them. Some admittedly should probably not see the light of day!) are works of musical art. Lets start with his lyrics. Witty, clever, rhyming and rhythmic. It's fairly easy to make lyrics rhyme (take J Biebs for example: "You are my love, you are my heart; and we will never ever ever be apart,"), but to make them become central to your songs beats is something totally different and for me why he stands out from other artists (For a prime example of this try Eminem's Lose Yourself). They also make you take a step back and think sometimes like Stan or You're Never Over. Stan in particular is a masterpiece. A beautifully haunting song. And they are so, so clever sometimes. You remember Love The Way You Lie with Rihanna? What's you're favourite lyric from that song? Is it "You don't get another chance; Life is no Nintendo game; But you lied again; Now you get to watch her leave out the window; Guess that's why they call it window 'pain,'" hmmm. Thought so!

The icing is his perfectly complimentary beats. And the cherry? The songs he samples. They just fit perfectly too. I could listen forever and not get bored. You'd keep finding different hidden meanings or euphemisms in his lyrics.

Well, that's what I think anyway. I love him as an artist and producer. But it is personal taste and opinion.

My favourite Eminem lyric? There are lots. But one fittingly for me: "all those who look down on me, I'm tearing down your balcony."

My Weight

Ok. Ok. It's not what it sounds. I do not have an eating disorder. If anything, I'm on a seafood diet. I see food, I eat it! (Get it?! Alright, enough with the Dad jokes...)

I'm short, and thus don't weigh a lot. I also struggle to put on weight. No matter how much I eat (and I can sometimes eat up to 5 meals a day in the middle of the season), I just can't seem to put on any weight. I blame my fast metabolism (although I'm not really sure what science says about that!) and the fact that I spend most of my time running around, chasing a ball into a goal!

Lets straighten some things out here. I have a BMI of 20.08(kg/m(sq)) which is classed as normal (i.e. I'm at a healthy weight), although as a sports scientist I will mention that BMI isn't always what it's cracked up to be. This is however, a recent development, I used to be 18.something for a long time, and only just above the underweight category.

From the ages of 13 to 18, I was 42kg. 42. For 5 years. 5 long, lightweight years. Then I went to uni, and I put on 2kg in 9 months to bring me up to 44kg. Fantastic! I then went to live and study in New Zealand and in 4 months put on another kilogram after the discovery of my love of beer. Ace! I then went travelling round New Zealand, eating to live rater than living to eat (which is how I normally am!) As a consequence I lost nearly 2kg in a month. 2. Sucks! So, very nearly back to square one.

"So Jen, tell us, if you're at a healthy weight, why do you want to put on weight?"

I play sports. Mainly football although I have been known to dabble in hockey, netball, athletics and the like. My issue is that because I'm small, I sometimes get pushed off the ball too easily. Not because I'm not strong (I have a brother and father to vouch for that!), but because the majority of the opposition could probably bench press me. Do I think it's holding me back in my sport? No. Not 98% of the time. But that other 2% pisses me off. I work hard to be fit and strong and to be a good player so when I lose out because of something like how much I weigh, it can be very disheartening.

As a result, I obsess about my weight. Not how to lose it like a large proportion of the population, but how to gain it effectively, and keep the weight on. God knows I've tried various different things. It's also not easy on a student budget.

Hey, ho. I still managed to chase the ball down and make a goal-line clearance on Sunday, even though I do weigh next to nothing! Life is good :)