Today started out at six o’clock (yes, A.M.) with giving blood (lots and lots of it, I was pricked a grand total of seven times). In order to work their magic, the doctors needed me to drink some solution of sugar and God knows what else. At nine we were finally allowed breakfast.
The first meal of the day consisted of one and a half slices of bread with margarine, which I left out, jam, and some yeast-based spread. Additionally, you could have as much vegetables as you like. They had only cucumber and kohlrabi left today, but it seems that was because we were so late. We were also allowed two pieces of fruit.
Between the meals most of us were completely free today, except if we needed any additional checks, which I didn’t. So I seized the opportunity and went back to bed after breakfast. Hey, don’t judge me, remember I had been drained of my life juice practically since midnight.
In Austria, lunch is usually the biggest meal of the day. As usual, we got our food served to our seats. The staff is competent and friendly, no complaints there. We had some kind of broth with eggs in it, a bowl of salad, a pork chop with mushrooms and noodles, and some kind of yoghurt jelly like substance that tasted faintly of lemon. Quite a normal lunch, just like you could have it at any cafeteria at work.
Still, I’m a bit surprised by the approach they take to the whole eating habits thing. All my life I had been told that dieting was bad, that several small meals a day are better than a few larger ones, and so on. Here they give you the feeling that, yes, you are on a diet (1100 calories!) and that you need to lower you expectations as to the quality as well as the quantity of the food. It’s not that it’s downright disgusting, but you can clearly taste where they left out those additional calories. So far, I’m not sure I will be able too keep it up when I’m out of here.
Since we had nothing special to do all afternoon, we went on another walk.
[nggallery id=9]
Oh, yes, supper will be some bread and cheese. Just about what I would have had anyway, only less of it. After that I will get my schedule for tomorrow. Hopefully things will speed up a little.
Schlagwort: food
This Kind of Slacktivism Is Addictive
Following a half-hearted recommendation by Stephen Fry I started to play http://www.freerice.com today. It’s one of the more compelling ideas I have seen lately, largely because it’s so simple: Play a quiz. For every answer you get right, 10 grains of rice will be donated through the UN World Food Program. Easy, if not very much. The whole thing is funded through advertising on the site, which seems to be lacking totally.
The site has been around since 2007, so don’t expect any to turn up soon.
Now, how much are 10 grains of rice? I’ve counted somewhat around 315 grains of rice in one teaspoon. To get to 100g, I needed sixteen of those teaspoons. I did my math and found out that you needed some 25,000 grains of rice to feed a person for a day. So, don’t expect that your making a big difference. Still, a small difference is way better than nothing.
And it’s entertaining. You can choose from a number of subjects; arts, chemistry, geograph, math. And several languages. My favourite is the English Vocabulary quiz. I soon found out how much I have yet to learn. It’s no so much the words of Latin or French origin. We have a lot of those in German, and mostly they mean the same. No, what really gets to me is the high number of rarely used or colloquial English words you just don’t learn in school.
And it’s educational value is raised by the fact that you are presented those questions you answered wrong again a little later. So, even though I’m aware it’s no more that slacktivism, I’m going to continue playing.