There is sugar in everything
Jan. 7th, 2026 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
disappointed_lesbianI wanted to buy a packet of spaghetti seasoning and a jar of gravy today. Both contained sugar, as did a bunch of other products I returned to the shelf.
I'm not particularly concerned about my refined sugar intake because I don't eat much refined sugar; I'm concerned about taste. I don't want sweet spaghetti nor sweet mashed potatoes and gravy. I know those products probably don't contain a lot of sugar, but I don't generally add sweets to savory meals, especially not to pasta or gravy, so I might be able to taste however little sugar there is in them. Plus I avoid non-vegan sugar, and, if I cannot tell whether the product is vegan, I tend to automatically put it back on the shelf.
I think there is also a little alarm that goes off in the back of my mind when I read these sorts of ingredient lists, something that says 'this is just wrong regardless of taste; don't trust this company/product, if they'll put sugar in something that absolutely should not contain sugar, who knows what else they'll spring on consumers.' The sugar is usually near the beginning of the list of ingredients, so the little alarm saves me the trouble of reading further.
I really wanted that damned jar of gravy because I can never find vegan gravy and I really miss potatoes, green peas, and gravy. The product had added oil too, a fat that would be completely useless in my diet. Either oil or sugar is added to everything.
I'm rather happy with the way my upper body looks but I'd still like to lose a bit of fat off my thighs and backside.
I missed the bus home today yet again, so I had two hours to burn while I waited for the next one. I spent the time reading some more of Maxwell's book and was frustrated by all the details that were left out; however, there were references to a work by Faraday that, I hope, will describe the actual experiments on which the theory is based. I hope that will clear things up but I'm afraid that it won't. There's like a huge pile of seemingly unfounded assumptions in physics, and I'm ever struggling to get to the bottom of it.
I'm quite tired from all the exercise I got today, hauling groceries around.
I hope my DOR counselor sends me a check. If she does, I'll use it to buy my own liquid iron. I'm supposed to be getting monthly reimbursement for my phone and internet costs because I use them to search for work. Actually, I use only the Internet. My counselor stopped sending this money and I never want to ask for it because I feel that I'm misusing it since I job search so little. Given all the months that have gone by, the check would be huge. So I asked for just a couple months' worth of reimbursement. She hasn't responded and I don't expect her to respond.
I have cut down on reading Department of Homeland Security Press Releases, but I still horrify myself by looking at them. There are just so many dangerous criminals from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, etc., and ICE is sending them back to those countries, that I feel bad for the people, especially the womyn and girls, who live there. I wish our government would do something to improve the quality of life for these people instead of stupid shit like plotting to take control of Greenland and repeatedly bombing any vessel that appears in the Caribbean. Or letting random refugees into this country. And I don't believe that Trump gives a damn about the Venezuelan president potentially having been involved in drug trafficking. This bizarre international arrest is about oil, money, control.
I finished reading Bird Box last night. It was surprisingly good given that it was all build-up for the end of the book. Actually, I guess the build-up is precisely what was good about it. The writing wasn't particularly moving. Only a few of the characters even ever began to become interesting, and the book ended shortly after that point.
I started to look for another novel, but I'm more likely to get through my history/philosophy of physics studies if I focus on that reading only. The novel distracted me when I tried to read both.
Suddenly I'm nauseous again, so not much will get done this evening. Today was a good day, so it's a pity it'll end this way. No studying Mandarin today. Feels bad.
The first reference I'm going to read is Faraday's On Static Electrical Inductive Action.
While sitting outside thinking about what I was reading today, I considered how helpful it would be to have professors of the subject matter. And that made me think about being a student of the subject and then graduating, becoming someone somewhat well-versed in the subject matter, and how incredibly satisfying it would be to have colleagues in the domain of the philosophy/history of science, people who share my interest in the subject, people capable of stimulating further interest, people I could bounce ideas off of, people who would perhaps understand my frustration with physics, my stickling for precision, my drive to go back to the foundations, to these old experiments, people who could appreciate how curious it is for us to speak of vacuums given that vacuums don't exist, people who probe and question the metaphors in physics theory and see that these ways of speaking and writing shape our view of the natural world in ways that aren't necessary and perhaps aren't even useful. It would be amazing.
But that'll probably never happen.
The current plan is to try for a full scholarship to study some sort of math in Taiwan. Even if I can't/don't stay in Taiwan, a math degree is within my sphere of interests and is marketable. And the courses should be easier to handle with my low-intermediate Mandarin. Which will be a solid intermediate or low-advanced by the time I leave this country.
I really need sleep. Bedtime is an hour away still. I'm going to take a double dose of iron tonight, whenever I wake up (because I certainly will); I need to know whether I can feel warmer than I do on a single dose.
I'm not particularly concerned about my refined sugar intake because I don't eat much refined sugar; I'm concerned about taste. I don't want sweet spaghetti nor sweet mashed potatoes and gravy. I know those products probably don't contain a lot of sugar, but I don't generally add sweets to savory meals, especially not to pasta or gravy, so I might be able to taste however little sugar there is in them. Plus I avoid non-vegan sugar, and, if I cannot tell whether the product is vegan, I tend to automatically put it back on the shelf.
I think there is also a little alarm that goes off in the back of my mind when I read these sorts of ingredient lists, something that says 'this is just wrong regardless of taste; don't trust this company/product, if they'll put sugar in something that absolutely should not contain sugar, who knows what else they'll spring on consumers.' The sugar is usually near the beginning of the list of ingredients, so the little alarm saves me the trouble of reading further.
I really wanted that damned jar of gravy because I can never find vegan gravy and I really miss potatoes, green peas, and gravy. The product had added oil too, a fat that would be completely useless in my diet. Either oil or sugar is added to everything.
I'm rather happy with the way my upper body looks but I'd still like to lose a bit of fat off my thighs and backside.
I missed the bus home today yet again, so I had two hours to burn while I waited for the next one. I spent the time reading some more of Maxwell's book and was frustrated by all the details that were left out; however, there were references to a work by Faraday that, I hope, will describe the actual experiments on which the theory is based. I hope that will clear things up but I'm afraid that it won't. There's like a huge pile of seemingly unfounded assumptions in physics, and I'm ever struggling to get to the bottom of it.
I'm quite tired from all the exercise I got today, hauling groceries around.
I hope my DOR counselor sends me a check. If she does, I'll use it to buy my own liquid iron. I'm supposed to be getting monthly reimbursement for my phone and internet costs because I use them to search for work. Actually, I use only the Internet. My counselor stopped sending this money and I never want to ask for it because I feel that I'm misusing it since I job search so little. Given all the months that have gone by, the check would be huge. So I asked for just a couple months' worth of reimbursement. She hasn't responded and I don't expect her to respond.
I have cut down on reading Department of Homeland Security Press Releases, but I still horrify myself by looking at them. There are just so many dangerous criminals from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, etc., and ICE is sending them back to those countries, that I feel bad for the people, especially the womyn and girls, who live there. I wish our government would do something to improve the quality of life for these people instead of stupid shit like plotting to take control of Greenland and repeatedly bombing any vessel that appears in the Caribbean. Or letting random refugees into this country. And I don't believe that Trump gives a damn about the Venezuelan president potentially having been involved in drug trafficking. This bizarre international arrest is about oil, money, control.
I finished reading Bird Box last night. It was surprisingly good given that it was all build-up for the end of the book. Actually, I guess the build-up is precisely what was good about it. The writing wasn't particularly moving. Only a few of the characters even ever began to become interesting, and the book ended shortly after that point.
I started to look for another novel, but I'm more likely to get through my history/philosophy of physics studies if I focus on that reading only. The novel distracted me when I tried to read both.
Suddenly I'm nauseous again, so not much will get done this evening. Today was a good day, so it's a pity it'll end this way. No studying Mandarin today. Feels bad.
The first reference I'm going to read is Faraday's On Static Electrical Inductive Action.
While sitting outside thinking about what I was reading today, I considered how helpful it would be to have professors of the subject matter. And that made me think about being a student of the subject and then graduating, becoming someone somewhat well-versed in the subject matter, and how incredibly satisfying it would be to have colleagues in the domain of the philosophy/history of science, people who share my interest in the subject, people capable of stimulating further interest, people I could bounce ideas off of, people who would perhaps understand my frustration with physics, my stickling for precision, my drive to go back to the foundations, to these old experiments, people who could appreciate how curious it is for us to speak of vacuums given that vacuums don't exist, people who probe and question the metaphors in physics theory and see that these ways of speaking and writing shape our view of the natural world in ways that aren't necessary and perhaps aren't even useful. It would be amazing.
But that'll probably never happen.
The current plan is to try for a full scholarship to study some sort of math in Taiwan. Even if I can't/don't stay in Taiwan, a math degree is within my sphere of interests and is marketable. And the courses should be easier to handle with my low-intermediate Mandarin. Which will be a solid intermediate or low-advanced by the time I leave this country.
I really need sleep. Bedtime is an hour away still. I'm going to take a double dose of iron tonight, whenever I wake up (because I certainly will); I need to know whether I can feel warmer than I do on a single dose.
