Everything Shall Happen at Once

From henceforth today you shall read the rant of the Everythings. Things that clump shall stay clumped, and empty space shall be nothing but open space. Everything shall happen at once, or not at all.
(Law of Everthings chapter 2, section 4.16)

If Chaos was a picture, this is what my brain would look like. 

I have decided that the universe is rather lazy, and likes to clump everything together to save effort. Especially along the time-continuum of things. Haven't you noticed that nothing will happen for ages on end, you'll have weekend after weekend free of anything social or even important to do, then suddenly three of your friends will call and invite you to paintballing, hiking, or a show all on the same night. At the same time. You haven't noticed that?

Okay girls, all the single ladies that read my blog. That's at least 3 people, right? Anyway let's talk about dates. How often has this scenario happened? You'll go weeks, months, even years without a date (heck, I went 2.5 years at one stretch) then suddenly you'll get asked out. Not just by one gentleman, but two. If you're lucky, three or four, even a fifth will express interest in you. And all within the same week. Sound familiar? Why does this happen then? I'm not really sure, I have some ideas, but this happens time after time so it's not a coincidence, there's some law actively governing things here.

Don't believe me yet? Well let's move on to pets.

How does this apply you may ask? Well, think about it. You probably went 3-4 years, heck, maybe even a decade without a pet of some sort in your life. Then, you decide to get a bird. Or a dog. A small dog. Suddenly, within 3 months you have become home to a petting zoo that consists of a dog, two cats, several birds, and all the neighbors asking if you can tend THEIR animals on the weekend. After years of petlessness, you are overcome with animals. Something fishy is going on here.

What about friends? It works this way too. You'll move to a new place, or even stay in an old one, and you'll  seem to have no friends that can stand being around you. Maybe no one knows you yet, maybe all your friends are busy or can't stand the sight of you and need a break. So you'll go a month or two spending Saturday night lying on the couch and trying to eat potato chips off your chest. Then, you'll either decide you've had enough of couch crumbs or your friends will forget why they were avoiding you and contact will once again be made. You'll have something to do every night of the week, sometimes five or six things and you're swamped. How does this happen?


Here's my explanation. The Law of Everythings clumps things together so that the most action takes place on the fewest amount of days. Don't ask me why, but it's as recurrent as Newton's Law of Gravity. You'd think this law would allow events to be spread out over time so you could handle the most amount possible. Not so.

     My explanation has three parts. One, life is like a floodgate. You either shut certain aspects completely out or you become entirely waterlogged with those occurrences. This may be a trick of the mind, but once you become aware of a lack of something in your life, you open yourself up to receiving it. Not the world's fault your life floodgate only has off and full blast.
     Second, sometimes you put off some sort of aura or personal bubble that people aren't welcome in. This applies especially to Laws of the Median involving other people. You bounce people off your bubble and then one day without your conscious mind realizing it your psyche carefully flips the reverse switch. Suddenly it's like people haven't seen you before and can't get enough. This would also explain weird trends in popularity like Beiber Fever.
     Third explanation is that we suffer from the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon on a much larger scale than we realize. This phenomenon explains that there is tons of information in our world. Such a large scale of sensory information that our brains block quite a bit of it out to keep from being overwhelmed. But, once you notice something, like how there is an arrow between the E and the X on the FedEx trucks, you notice this everywhere. Your brain becomes sensitized to the information and you can see the other occurrences of it. This explains the other half of the phenomenon that's not people related, but more you or other thing related. It's actually a rather interesting phenomenon and I recommend reading more on that.

Anyway, the reason for this introspection is that I was offered three different options for the first two weeks of May. Once is that I'm going to watch my aunt Roberta while my Grandma goes to Israel. Two is that I was offered a rather full-time job of working with the PTC (a 6-week run that starts the end of April). Three, I was offered a volunteer opportunity to stage-manage the Farmington summer play, which starts with auditions the first week of May and would require almost full-time attention every evening until the show opened. So, I can only do one of those things adequately. I haven't had a job for three months now, and suddenly there's a possibility for three of them? All starting within 4 days of each other? Yep, that's the Law of the Everythings at work.

Think about it, and I'll bet you can identify things like this right off the bat in your life. Currently this law is quite frustrating to me, although at other times it can be awesome. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day and see if you can find a FedEx truck just for kicks.

10 Little Habits That Can Destroy Your Brain

You might want to re-examine those little daily habits after reading this list. These are some small but very important things that can have a negative impact on your brain. Read on, hopefully you'll want to change something in your life after you finish!

1. Skipping Breakfast - Many people underestimate breakfast. Not consuming anything in the morning causes a decline in blood sugar levels. This results in a lack of nutrients to the brain. Continuing this habit for too long can cause a decline in brain function over a few years, due to insufficient brain fuel. The best breakfast in the morning is not heavy foods such as burgers, but water and at least glass of fresh fruit juice. I also throw in some protein in the form of an egg and beans! Compact and useful for the body!

10 Little Habits That Can Destroy Your BRAIN

2. Overeating - Too much to eat can harden the blood vessel of the brain that usually leads to the decline of mental powers. This is due to buildup of fatty acids and cholesterol. I bet you didn't know that in addition to affecting the heart, this affects the brain as well! So eat a normal portion. Familiarize yourself with portion sizes so you stop eating before you’re stuffed.

3. Smoking - Cigarettes have a lot of bad effects, everyone already knows this. There’s one more bad effect from cigarettes that you should know. Smoking reduces the size of blood vessels throughout the body. This effect is seen easily in the extremities (fingers and toes being cold) but also affects the brain. With decreased blood flow the human brain can gradually shrink, lose cells, and lose much of the elasticity that allows you to learn and think quickly. One more reason to quit!

4. Consuming Too Much Sugar - Too much sugar intake will prevent the absorption of protein and nutrients in the body and brain. Sugar can override important nutrients and cause a form of malnutrition. This is especially significant with children and teenagers, as this disrupts brain development. Sad to say, but we should probably reduce sugar consumption. (Ahh, chocolate! I must have my chocolate!)

5. Air Pollution - The brain is part of the body absorbs the most oxygen. Too long in a polluted environment makes the brain work inefficiently.

6. Sleep Deprivation - Sleep gives the brain a chance to rest. Frequent sleep deprivation makes the brain cells  die from exhaustion. On the other hand excessive amounts of sleep can make you become lazy and slow. You should sleep 6-8 hours a day for the best benefits.

7. Covering one’s head during sleep - Sleeping with the head covered is a bad habit that can be very dangerous. Carbon dioxide produced by the lungs during sleep can collect in the enclosed space and become concentrated in the brain. Too much CO2 will damage the brain over time.

8. Thinking Too Hard - This might seem kind of weird, but the brain is like a muscle in many ways. When sick, working hard or studying can hinder the effectiveness of the brain. If you're sick, be aware that you can overstress the brain as well as the body and get some much-needed rest! 

9. Lack of Brain Stimulation - Thinking is the best way to train the brain. Again, it's like a muscle in that if you don't use it, you'll lose it! Engage in brain-stimulating activities frequently such as diligent reading, listening to music and playing challenging games such as Chess or Scrabble. Currently, I'm catching up on my books and I'm in an improv group which definitely keeps you on your toes! 

10. Rarely Talking - Quiet people may be considered polite, but you should consider whether you're engaging in conversation or just sitting out so you don't have to think. Once again, use it or lose it! Intellectual conversations have a good effect on the brain. So get out there, socialize, and debate! It'll be fun and good for  your brain!

It's 2 am, and I'm hungry

Pictured: disgustingly healthy food 

Well, nothing much more to be said, besides the fact that I'm hungry and am slowly counting down the hours to breakfast. This is the hard, difficult part of diets that makes you want nothing more than to dive into a bowl of marshmallows and chocolate, but instead you end up with something like this.-------->

Dusclops, probably a combination of a dust mite and  a cyclops

And with that, I'll leave you with a final image that I found while searching for disgusting healthy food on the internet. The lowest ranked, underused Pokemon in the Pokemon universe. Yay for learning useless trivia that you'll never use, especially at 2 in the morning.

4 Hour Body: Starting a DIET

I thought it might be amusing to include a few entries from my food diary. I recently started the diet as outlined by Tim Ferriss in 'The Four Hour Body'. It's sorta working as far as I can tell. Anyway, enjoy :)

(Friday, Feb 15th) Day one of diet: this diet’s gonna ssssssssssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. A lot. First, I was too full, then I was hungry, then my body didn’t know what to do with all the extra long lasting protein energy, then I got a headache because of lack of sugar, and now I’m going through withdrawals. Can’t wait for Sunday; get to eat all the sugar I want!!!!!!!! Oh, and I ate 2 fried eggs, one celery stick (full length) with hummus, and a small amount of black beans with some mixed veggies for breakfast, a spinach salad with steak strips, pico de gallo, beans, veggies, red peppers, sautéed onions, salsa, and lots of avocado for lunch. Same thing for dinner but I just picked around the spinach, didn’t really want that. Now I’m hungry and have a headache. Sunday is my wonderful, delicious cheat day, just gotta go one day more then I can have sugar!!!!! Gonna do something similar for diet tomorrow, probably steak and spinach and fried eggs for breakfast and maybe chicken for dinner with vegetables. Beans in there somewhere. Today’s Friday the 15^th, didn’t mention that earlier. Argh, sugar withdrawal…

Sunday, February 17th

And welcome to upset stomach today. In the book it indicates that your cheat day should be AFTER you go 5 days on the diet. Well, since Sunday was supposed to be my cheat day and I'd managed to get through 2 full days of the diet (yay me) I decided that (this was really late Saturday night) since it was 1am and I was out with friends and it was technically Sunday, that I could start my cheat day then. Argh, big mistake. One delicious milkshake at night resulted in nausea and general irritability in the AM. Blergh, I just got over the headaches.... Anyway, decided to continue the diet through to next Sunday and let that be my cheat day. Just can't manage to figure out what's going on with this, I usually have NO PROBLEM with sugar, or milk, or ice cream, LOVE the stuff. But today? Ack. 

Wednesday, February 20th. 

Okay, here's a rundown. Staying on the diet really really well, except for Monday night I cheated and ate some chocolate covered cookie dough bites. What can I say, I love it :) I am having no problems with headaches anymore, and my skin is starting to clear up. I have a chronic problem with adult acne (chronic to me, it's really just localized spots that seem to never really go away, but keep flaring up) but this diet has given me a reduction in new spots already, which is awesome. The hardest problem with this diet is OTHER PEOPLE, you tell them you're on a diet and they're all like, "Oh, so you can't eat juice, or milk, or bread, or starch? What CAN you eat?" I prefer to focus on everything I can eat, and if I get a really bad craving, I silence it with water or peanut butter. It's funny but I really don't want to eat the sugar anymore. Last night a friend handed me half a chocolate cookie that they made, which of course you can't refuse or you'd hurt their feelings, and so I ate it. 15 minutes later, mild headache that took an hour to go away. My body seems to be adapting, I am waking up earlier and less sluggish and happier too. There's a lot of good benefits, I'm just trying to dance around other people's expectations and what they're trying to make me eat. The worst is when people try to make you feel guilty for being on a diet. I mean, come one, I'm 2% bodyfat OVER what I should be, placing me at the low end of overweight. I have lost 5lbs though, and can't wait until Saturday, my measurement day! Sunday, I'm going to eat bread like there's no tomorrow, so far doing ok without it though. 

And the Culprit is: Food and Exercise!

I have discovered why I gain weight after working out. It is a combination of working out, drinking more water, being hungrier, and eating more. It sucks but after you work out really hard and are starving the next day, you can't proceed with larger portions and helpings to help get satisfied, otherwise you will undo all the hard work you just put in.
Being sick of watching the scale go up when I worked out, (I weighed myself this morning, 167lbs! That's the highest my weight has EVER been), I decided to do some research and kick this in the teeth before it finished getting started. (It being the fat monster) The general conclusion was that some weight gain could be due to muscle, but as I already have muscle and am not unused to working out. I have been upping workouts but that doesn't cause a lot of muscle gain if it's mostly running, yoga, and intensity strengthening. So, the only thing left is: I'm working out more, so I'm eating more.

Blergh, if I want to be in shape and be actually able to see all my slowly developing muscles, I'm going to have to eat about the same as I was before, maybe even less. I was originally on My Food Diary (myfooddiary.com) to help keep track of caloric intake and output, but left after 2 weeks when I foolishly decided I could monitor my own intake without the help of a machine. (And that was back in May) Truth is, I can't, my body wants to rest at the comfortable, soft 162-165lb level for some reason, and I know I can get into a better, healthier shape than that.

So here I go again, maintaining the workout but now I'm back to calorie counting. I don't have time or money to go purchase a whole bunch of organic fresh food, so my general terms are:
-Stick with fruits, veggies, and fresh stuff

-Avoid processed foods

-No sugary drinks or soda

-Don't overeat
-Rewards occasionally

And here it goes! This is probably the 20th time I've started a routine/fitness regimine, but it's the first time I've been actually watching what I eat at the SAME TIME I'm measuring how much I exercise. I'll keep ya'll updated.

That's This

To this!

Also I learned to tie a bowtie last night. It was a lot of fun!