Twittersphere!

lmao this seriously made me laugh out loud. If you use twitter at all, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it

Back from spring break

well, I had a blast on my spring break! The beach was beautiful when I went, and I got to watch the shuttle launch from right outside my house [because it got canceled like 80 billion times, and I wanted to go to the beach so I didn't care whether the launch was going off or not]. What more could I ask for?! I’ve been really tired this week since classes are back in session, so I haven’t really been inspired [or done anything inspiring] to write about. I’ve been too tired to read my New Scientist magazine, which I have 3 news one of. Anyway, until I formulate a good topic to write about, I wanted to leave you with these. One is a picture of the sunrise at 7:20 AM right in my backyard, and the other, underneath it, is the video from the shuttle launch. Enjoy!
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Shuttle Launch! Hoooray!

Another intermittent post- I’m sorry! I know, I know. I’ve been promising a physics post. I have it saved but I’m trying to make sure that everyone can understand it. I’m trying to break down all the physics-y stuff into laymans terms I guess. To tell you the truth, I think I’ve just been lazy. But anyway, there’s a shuttle launch tomorrow and we’re going to the beach with a friend to watch it :D HOORAY! It should be fun! Although, NASA is on my temporary hit list because they were supposed to have it yesterday but they moved it to today, and today we were prepared to go to the beach and it got effin changed to tomorrow. What were they thinking?! Why on earth would NASA think they could CHANGE a launch date? Geez, way to go NASA. Total dream crushing homewrecker. [Note: total sarcasm right there, in case you couldn't see it].

Tomorrow night I should have a video of it, given that we get there on time and aren’t mobbed by tons of angry beach goers. Byes!

I'm a creative person! on paper!

I wanted to post this article from psychology today-
The Creative Personality
I won’t waste time paraphrasing it because the whole article is pretty rockin’. Basically, it describes the mind of a creative person (writers [read:me], designers, artists, physicists, scientists etc) and sums up how I feel a lot of the time. Of course, some of the things are completely off. It describes creative people as having a lot of energy but by no means hyper, they like to rest etc. THAT is totally not me, seeing as I always want to be doing SOMETHING. Aside from that though, it’s pretty on point. It’s not often you get to read an actual article from psychology today that demystifies the idea of the “creative” mind. Enjoy! And as usual… check back for the post I’m working on currently.

Science & Progress

I do have a post that I’m currently formulating (it’s about physics, so if you don’t care to read it don’t check back. But it shall be interesting!) BUT! I wanted to put this little post in here because…. OBAMA JUST ANNOUNCED THAT HE LIFTED THE BAN ON STEM CELL RESEARCH!! How exciting is that?!?!?! Hate me all you want, but I am a complete supporter of it. I know we all walk the fine line of “what is considered human” and “at one point does something feel” but… this is a necessary step forward in science to allow us to study and research things we weren’t before! I wrote a post on stem cell research last year so….hooray obama! thank you.

Please stay tuned in the next few days for my ACTUAL post. Bahahaha.

Robots, Australians and Didjeridoos, oh my!

Okay sooo. I wasn’t going to write anything tonight because I haven’t really looked through my new magazine that came today, but I came across this on engadget.com that was pretty freaky looking. 1) Because robots are doing housework and 2) I’ve always been convinced that robots with artificial intelligence will slowly take over the world. This lovely, beautiful and metal endowed beasts are named “DESIRE” and “Rollin’ Justin”. It’s true. I tell you no lies. See video below and continue reading underneath that.

Pretty much, it replaces a physical person who would stay at an elder person’s house in order to assure that somebody(thing) is there to do difficult tasks.. which clearly consists of throwing out cans and taking out the garbage. Since I STILL don’t feel like writing much tonight, I think I’ll wrap this up. I do have some other nonsensical things on my agenda that I want to discuss though.

NIP/TUCK! Which I just typo-ed as HIP/TUCK! Which… would make sense also I guess. You can tuck hips right? Or would that just be liposuction?? Anyway- The season finale was on Tuesday night and it was WEIRD. I’ve been watching the show for years and it was weird enough to make me THINK it was weird. Nip/Tuck is already a really strange show, so you can imagine what went on in the finale. I won’t tell you what happens (who knows if you still have to watch it?! I refuse to ruin your pre-planned Nip/Tuck night and accost you with details) but please make sure you watch it!

Also! The stamp collector! Has ANYBODY seen that movie? I was thinking about it because I said something about lying up there, and the line from the movie goes like so-

Tommy Tricker- “Ask me a question, and I tellllll you no liiiiies”

It’s from the 80′s I think, ’cause I watched it when I was a kid, but nobody else has seen it! It has the kid who rides on the stamp, and gets kicked around from place to place, and ends up in Australia trying to escape from some Didjeridoo toting crazy Aussie with kangaroos! While that sounds like I’m on some strange hallucinogenic, I assure you that it exists! Anyway. I think I spent too much time today studying. I sound like a maniac. Good night.

Cause or symptom? Unraveling the science of sleep

Sleep… a symptom or a cause?

*If you want to read the preface to this article (which explains what happened to me -the bloodwork, the symptoms, etc) and see WHY I was reading this article, please read the following introduction that I wrote.. if you want to get into the scientific goodness then just skip it-

As you’ve probably gathered from reading previous posts, I’ve had major sleeping issues in the past and recently, that evidently left me tired and drained during the day. I always felt like I was just on the verge of being able to pass out. I would black out when I stood up. I had NO energy and existed soley on caffiene. (sidenote: I still do that anyway- coffee is delicious). To make a long story short, I got some bloodwork done, everything was perfect, but she recommended me to go to a sleep specialist neurologist guy to get a consultation. She said there were 4 types of sleep disorders- none of which I fit in to because I can FALL asleep, I just don’t STAY asleep. I wake up very easily and feel like I’m always on the brink of wakefulness. I’ve studied sleep (not officially, just in my own time through research) for years and years because it’s just.. well.. bugged me. I knew I didn’t fit into the regular categories either. There’s sleep apnoea (yes, it occurs in people both big and small) which I KNEW I didn’t have, sleep wakefullness (narcolepsy) which I don’t have because I can’t fall asleep to save my life in the daytime or even nap… insomnia- which I don’t have because I can actually fall asleep at night, and idiopathic sleep disorder, which is what I evidently DO have. If you haven’t caught on, she totally made that last category up. It’s where they stick people that have weird sleep symptoms that they haven’t yet been able to classify. I like to say it’s the “what the hell is THAT” category. I have such a shallow sleep that I’ve speculated I don’t entireley hit REM sleep for however many cycles I should be going through. Maybe the sleep neurologist can tell me. With all the research I’ve done, I’m pretty sure I was able to diagnose myself. Lol. Anyway, that’s why I’m writing about this article.

When you think of sleep disorders or problems, do you automatically assume that they’re a symptom or a cause? When people have other physical ailments, mental disorders perhaps, do you attribute a sleep issue to those problems? Where do sleep disorders come from? What triggers them?

Those questions are what we all are asking and wondering… but what if the answer doesn’t lie in the research we’re performing? This article, entitled “Sleep well, stay sane” in New Scientist can open your eyes and really make you wrap your brain around the findings they exhibit. It’s like the looking glass; what if sleep disorders are causing these other disorders and not vice versa? We’ve always been treating sleep issues as a symptom; what if it’s a cause? The article introduces us to the idea that poor sleep may be causing some psychiatric problems, and people are being treated with prescriptions as if they HAVE that illness, when it’s merely an ailment of poor sleeping. Millions [including children] could possibly be taking psychoactive drugs to cure an illness that they don’t even have; it could only be the symptoms of a sleep abnormality. This is not only inherently dangerous, but also makes you analyze how exactly doctors prescribe medicine. Doctors have already crossed the boundaries and found that erratic sleep was indeed connected to plenty of disorders. Saying that poor sleep was a symptom was so crystal clear, and researchers/doctors so trusted that nobody even thought twice about it.

In one research study, presented by Clifford Risk, they took 34 adults who were diagnosed with sleep apnoea and did further tests on them. Of those 34, 16 of them had scores which implied a moderate/severe attention impairment. They would have been considered classic cases of ADD or ADHD. Once they started treating the sleep apnoea, there were substantial improvements in the results of their attention scores. The sleeping disorder was disrupting their attention. Had they gone to a doctor with those symptoms, they would have most likely prescribed them Ritalin after observing them. This study ALSO suggests that a sleep abnormality was causing the body to mimic the symptoms of another disorder. In other words, sleep was the cause, not the symptom.

Schizophrenia is considered somewhat of a medical mystery still to this day, because there are so many loose ends and unanswered questions. I’ve also read up on this disorder a lot. I won’t bore you with my musings (because it’s all so in and out, with the disorder, that we’d be talking in circles forever. Part of it is genetic, and if you’re related to somebody who has/had schizophrenia, you are more likely to develop it, however, the correct environment or atmosphere will trigger it, so not everybody with the gene will display symptoms and develop it. blah blah blah. It also goes into nature vs. nurture and all that good stuff. If you’re interested in it, click this link- Schizophrenia article 1 or this link- Schizophrenia article 2) It really is a fascinating disorder and I hope you decide to visit those sites. I totally got off track here, but I AM going somewhere with this. One common trait of somebody with schizophrenia is the inability to master “rote” tasks. One example would be operating machinery. Procedural learning [which is part way responsible for the ability to master such tasks] have a certain sleep dependent component. People with chronic schizophrenia cannot constantly improve such tasks overnight like people without the disorder. Lack of sleep can actually affect that component, therefore sprouting symptoms of schizophrenia. One might go to a doctor with such symptoms, along with the irritability, aloofness etc and may very well be a suspect of that disorder.

Stress hormone levels increase when you encounter sleep disruption. Having high stress levels produce anxiety during the day, which is common in MANY types of psychiatric disorders. Sleep issues can also interfere with the brain’s ability to react to emotional stimuli without being over the top of out of control. When you’re sleep deprived, your amygdala (the part of your brain that is emotionally reactive) is not communicating properly or effectively with the pre-frontal lobe, which is responsible for sending/controlling inhibitory signals to the emotional part of the brain. The inhibitor works just like it sounds- it gets in there and acts as a barrier, and “inhibits” that part to control what exactly it is doing. When this fails, it’s like opening a can of worms. Things can get out of control. Real fast.

While none of this is concrete as of yet, it’s a pretty damn good starting point for discovering what is really happening. I, of all people, know how important sleep is. If you read below (like the intro said) I have my own little story about what I suspect is going wrong with me. I’m malfunctioning. Lol. I know that not getting proper sleep can unearth a whole boat full of issues emotionally, physically, and mentally. Nothing is worse than “sleeping” for 9 hours and not ACTUALLY sleeping. I wake up feeling like I just fell asleep. My whole day is messed up. I guess you could say I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Evidently I slept on the wrong side as well.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was REALLY ecstatic to find this article. I had always felt as if a lack of gratifying and deep sleep was conducive to a lot of problems. I think it’s wonderful that researchers are finally looking into sleep as a cause, and not just a symptom. After all, sleep is the one of the most important cycles our body partakes in. You know, aside from the heart pumping blood through our veins, our brain waves, central nervous system etc. Sleep is the time when everything in our body is rehabilitated. It’s a spa day for our system that works with such clockwork that we don’t even realize what’s occurring in there. Sleep is important! How else will we rejuvenate and revive our body, day after day? I am so thankful for this article. You never realize how important something is until you see what happens when you’re lacking it.


Websites I frequent and think are interesting :)

I don’t really feel like writing something super long or one that needs a big thought process tonight because I am busy formulating an equation that may quite possibly save the world [or at least get me an A on my test tomorrow]. Due to the fact that my hands are tied in this excruciatingly important task- I figured I would just post a couple of places that I like to go [when I'm not plotting to take over.. errrr.. SAVE the world with Jenna. duh] that are fun to get updates on or just browse through. Most of them are updated multiple times daily. It may appeal to you or it may not, but there’s nothing wrong with getting the websites out there :). Who knows- you may find a new interest. These are off the top of my head, and since my laptop is a jerk, I had to reinstall everything so all my bookmarks are backed up on my external hard drive which I don’t really feel like looking at. But when I do, I shall update :)

So that’s all for now. Next I think I might make a Twitter post about useful Twitter people [tweeters?!?!] to follow. I follow a few designer’s and writer’s twitter names as well. If you want me to put yours on there than just send me an email here using my contact form, located on [none other than] the ‘contact me!’ page!

Utilizing your home "office" (as we all like to call it)

Everybody LOVES to have an office. I know I do. I’ve always had an office. Does that mean I utilize it the way an office SHOULD be utilized? Noooo. I think we’re all guilty of that. Who ACTUALLY uses an office to.. well.. work all the time? The correct answer should be “I do!”, however the answer is “fail”. I don’t currently have a job (since I’m a student) but I do spend many, MANY hours in this office, that I fondly refer to as “black hole life consuming void of the house” writing and doing school work. The beauty of my UCF classes are that every single class I am in right now, is in a big lecture hall (like a normal college class) except they record them as well, so that if I am so inclined to stay home in my pajamas and feel as IF I am in class… well, I can. I don’t take advantage of this NEARLY as much as I should, because I actually like to have a physical presence in class. I find the work is much easier when I’m there,  and not being distracted by a full kitchen and a coffee pot. They are hazardous to my health when I am in the vicinity of either for more than a few hours… [if there is still any content left in them].

I figured that since I’ve had the experience of attempting to utilize my office for what it’s worth, I would attempt to share my misconstrued wisdom about “work” along to you. How do we work? Let me count the ways.

1) This application, called “Xmind” is completely free and supported by both Windows, Mac, Ubuntu and a few other platforms. Go to this link- Xmind and sign up for an Xmind account. If you have an OpenID, which chances are most of you reading this do not since I didn’t even have one, you can use that instead. Just go to this page- Xmind Downloads, click to download with your choice platform, and log in. Or, once you sign up for a new Xmind account, you can download it as well. Either way, this thing is AWESOME. It’s for mind mapping, the new organization and task related deal where you use visual objects to map out your progress. But it has SO MANY AWESOME THINGS! You can mind map and make it really custom too- the idea is that having it visually displayed will help you follow it and see the actual progress. Remember, people like to see results, not just words written down with no meaning. Here’s a screen shot from my laptop:
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There’s a lot to learn on this thing, so I’m starting to work with it. It’s a weeeeeee bit complicated… it took me about 3 minutes to figure out the controls to show you those lovely two boxes. It’s magnificent though!

2) Avoid the devil’s temptation. That’s right. You know just as well as I do what I’m about to say… what other massive time sink could I be speaking of? Facebook, Myspace and everything like that. While it’s fun to know you’re home “working” and you have the freedom to do whatever you want; you can’t. This is what distinguishes successful “work from home” or “office in home” people from the… well  not so successful ones.  For every second that you spend mindlessly scavenging those websites you could be doing something to give yourself more time when you actually need it. For instance: Me attempting to write a 7 page essay while constantly checking every social networking site available in an attempt to avoid my mind numbing work could accomplish nothing and only adds an extra hour or two to write it. On the upside, I do however know that “Billy” is no longer in a relationship and “Susan” has a status message up spilling all the wonderful information about her pedicure.. or electrolysis.. or whatever the hell else she did today that nobody really cares about, and I can also see my own status message stated that I baked cookies! Of course I lied, because my cookies come out looking like brownies that are hard as bricks but… whatever, I’m not suzy homemaker over here lol. That time could very well be restructured into me actually finishing the essay in the appropriate amount of time and having EXTRA time after for mindless stalking and life updates.

side note: I was just referencing Bruce Wayne, not to be mistaken with Bruce Banner.. why is the name “Bruce” common to the Marvel/DC comics world? HMMMM?!

3) POST IT NOTES! I love post it notes, as I’ve mentioned MANY TIMES BEFORE! There’s a new white board calendar thing that came out, with post it notes as the days! WONDERFUL OH MY GOD. These items are essential in planning your tasks, especially if you’re not computer savvy, or just like the looks of colorful post its. Please visit this website full of heavenly goodness- POST-ITS!

4) Treat your day like any other day. I know it’s fun to not give a crap and just do your work while lounging around (trust me! I know!) but it’s much easier to kick start the day and feel like you’re going to accomplish things if you wake yourself up the right way! That means get up, MAKE A FRESH POT OF COFFEE (note the important of that step… I would seriously take a shower before that if I was capable, but coffee holds a special power over me… mmmm), take a shower, throw on some nice clothes and clear your desk. Open up your organizer (you should have one! I harp on shane all the time but we’re complete opposites when it comes to that stuff) and check what exactly you have to do for the day. ORRR! If you did what step 1 told you, open up Xmind  (avoid the temptation to stalk facebook/myspace) and look at what is ahead of you. You can make a list of things you need to tackle today, and things that can be left for later in the week.

5) Keep snacks on your desk. Snacking while working (or studying) makes me happy. I swear I could snack for all 1,440 minutes of the day.

6) Set actual working hours. While it’s nice to take breaks and commence work for a while, only returning at 8 pm, think long and hard about it. If you have a structured “work” day, you can get up as late as you want, or work whenever you want, as long as its a constant block of time. Get up at noon if you want, but set your work hours until say… 6 PM. Then post it note (see step 3) or Xmind (see step 1) what you didn’t finish so you can have it ready to go for the next day.

7) Make sure that your desk is clean (Aside from step 5 and step 3) but make sure!!!! and this is important!!!! that you don’t have any old annoying notes hanging around that are already done or irrelevant. Throw them out, you pack rat! You’ll feel more overwhelmed if there’s old ones laying around (or stuck to your monitor). Having a nice clean work area will give you a supremely awesome peaceful feeling. If you own your house (or get approval from your apartment complex) pick a soothing color to paint your office, such as a nice neutral beige, a medium-ish blue, lavender etc. Having a new fresh coat of paint (that you pick out) can make your office extremely cozy :) Or, in the case of my hot chocolate brown family room, make you crave chocolate. Either way.. you have snacks, so no worries.

8) fueng shui like a badass! The layout of your office can make or break how comfortable you feel.

Another thought: I had somebody ask me yesterday if I had hazel eyes. Must have been the weird lighting in the room. Either that or somebody finally noticed the green line in my eye lol.

That is all for now. It’s past midnight and I’m sleepy. I need to get up and run before class tomorrow and I can’t do that if I’m half asleep and dreaming of all the post-it notes I wrote about in this post. Good night.

What do I want?

To go to law school. Like, immediately. As in- right now. I’m almost contemplating taking classes through the summer so I can graduate in December. ::ponder ponder::

I never take summers off though, EVER. I really kind of want to relax this summer and clear my head from the constant schooling; actually ENJOY the florida summer. What a dilemma… I don’t have anything useful or interesting to write about this time around.. I spent my whole day studying for finance. I just upgraded to the new version of word-press. I know! It took me so long! It’s like I live in the dark ages.. or maybe it was just that I was too lazy. Also, the custom theme is still in progress. No longer will I have to use these god awful pre-fabricated ones!

I received a call the other day because my friend in the honor society used me as a reference for a job at citi-group. The guy started talking to me on the phone about her, then he asked if I ever worked in a finance related field before. I said “no.. but I AM a finance major. I don’t know how much weight THAT carries” and he’s like “OH GOD! YES!” (like I was the messiah or something) and he demanded an interview with me for a new office they’re opening in Orlando. It’s not a bank- so I’m not sure what kind of paperwork or clients I’ll be working with, but we’ll see. It’s pretty freakin’ awesome to have somebody call YOU for a job. Let’s see if it’s everything it sounds like though.

Also! I demand that you go see Coraline 3-D immediately! It is this amazing and creepy stop motion film that is extremely “alice in wonderland”-esque. I was consumed while watching this movie. Until the jerk up in the little room projecting the movie decided to turn on those gross yellow overhead lights and let them spill into the theater. Boooo. Make sure you get the 3′D glasses. We sat down, and the movie told us to put them on, so we look at eachother like .. “what?? where?? glasses??? 3-D??” and everyone, like clockwork, pulls their stunner-shade 3-D glasses down over their heads. They aren’t the old retro blue and red kind. Ohhh no. These are pretty damn sweet looking. So… yeah. Go see Coraline and stuff.

Check back.. and sorry for the pointless post. Though I shouldn’t be apologizing.. you’re the one who came here after all :)