Category Archives: Personal Blog

Entries from my personal journal

Personal Blog

Brainz!

2 Comments

I noticed a weird thing that my brain did the other day…

I was at the animal shelter, and went into one of the cat colony rooms to work on cat socialization (read: petting and snuggling). The cat colony rooms are setup to be like a living room of sorts: a couch, coffee table, some tables, and an abundance of cat trees and toys and hidey holes. This is where they keep cats who enjoy being around other cats.

Anyway, as I sat down to join one of the cats lounging on the couch, I noticed my brain processing information in a particular way, and I found it rather interesting.

When I looked at the cat, I realized “that cat has three legs.” But, I noticed that it took me until I sat down beside him for several moments before I’d registered *which* of the three legs he was missing.

I find this kind of bizarre. It wasn’t as though I thought “there is something different about that cat” and then after a bit of observation noticed he was missing a leg. No, my brain processed the fact of his three-leggedness all in one go, but it took extra time to notice the specific of which leg was missing. I recall that I even spent several moments looking at his hind legs to find the missing leg before seeing that it was one of his forelegs.

Is this not a strange ability? Maybe it is similar to reading – how I tend to process text in big chunks at a time before actually seeing their individual components.

Or maybe I just think too much.

As an aside, the three-legged cat was very friendly and snuggly and seemed perfectly at home with only having three legs.

Personal Blog

Perdido Street Station

2 Comments

So, in an effort to acquire new fiction for my mind to devour, I checked out Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, as recommended by Drew on my LA visit.

The story world is a brilliant sort of non-Tolkien-derived fantasy, complete with science-magic, math-magic (Scott, you would like it), and a splash of steam punk for good measure. It is gripping, exciting, and in the end, rather rough. I just finished it tonight and feel shaken and slightly ill-at-ease, but in the good way that happens from immersive books.

My brain feels refreshed and newly hungry, after going quite awhile re-reading stories that I’d known already. Fortunately for me, there’s more to the series.

I have to sit for awhile, though, and digest and ponder what I’ve read before I subject myself to another. Back to the library with it!

Personal Blog

Experimental Dinner

2 Comments

Sometimes I throw together complete experiments for dinner, and sometimes they turn out really well! This week I had some leftover ground pork from making nikuman, and so threw this recipe together for pork burgers. It turned out to be DELICIOUS.

Ingredients
– ground pork… half poundish?
– small onion, finely chopped
– clove of garlic, finely chopped
– dash of rice vinegar
– dash of soy sauce
– bread crumbs (like, super fine crumbs, as in “throw a hunk of stale bread in a blender and puree it into dust” fine)
– a kaiser roll to use as the bun

1) Mix everything together and make patties
2) Grill them
3) Serve on bun

NOMLICIOUS!

Personal Blog

Her Morning Elegance

1 Comment

My favorite thing in the world is when people find things or make things that they say reminds them of me. It is so fascinating!

On that topic, Bryan Cash said, “I think that can tell a lot about what you unconsciously bring up in people.”

He said this video reminded him of me. Perhaps for my unusual relationship with sleep? Who can say, but it might be indicative of how I live my life!

Personal Blog

Writer’s Block: Left Behind

2 Comments

Today’s Writer’s Block question on LJ is: What do you want done with your body after you die?

I’ll be donating my body to science! Let me explain my reasoning..

A few years ago I had the unfortunate luck of having to go through many, many funerals in a short span of time, and I remember making some noteworthy observations.

Funerals are expensive. Caskets are expensive. Burying people is *expensive.* The stressful responsibility of paying for and orchestrating these purchases falls on those who are grieving and probably the least deserving of the burden. It seems like an awful system, in a way. During this time, I thought, how could I make my funeral less of a painful ordeal to my family?

From living several years with Scott during the time when he was often working and teaching in the gross anatomy lab at UofL, I learned some things about the cadavers that I hadn’t known. After being dissected and used in class, the bodies are gathered and cremated, and the school holds a nice little memorial service for all of them. The ashes are then returned to the family, if they want them.

What a nice system for the family! When I die, the university will take care of moving my body. My family won’t have to purchase a casket, and look…FREE cremation! So much less stress!

Sure, they won’t get the ashes right away, but that’s partially a good thing. That way, if they DO want to get a fancy urn for me, they’ll be doing it sometime after the initial grieving process, and probably while in a much better state to consider that decision.

And yes, someone will cut off my arms and legs and head with a bone saw so that I can fit in the cremation bag, but the family doesn’t have to deal with those details.

Oh…yeah…and some students learn some stuff blah blah whatever.

In spite of this plan, I STILL have not completed the paperwork necessary to authorize the donation. Part of this is because I’ve been between primary doctors, but I think that the next time I go to see my Pittsburgh doctor, I’ll bring it along. I also have to have a few other people sign it, but I forget exactly who…I’ll have to look at it again.

ANYWAY! Looking for a way to make your death less of a pain in the ass for your family? Consider donating to science! Just sayin.

Personal Blog

Results of the Sleepathon

So, my internship at Schell Games has started in full swing and is awesome thus far! However, I thought I’d post about what I learned, or concluded…or just theorized from my 2 week sleep study.

1) I think I caught up on an amazing deficit. The first few days I was sleeping upwards of 14 hours a day, and eventually this tapered off somewhat to around 9 or 10 hours a night. I felt it was good, rejuvenating sleep, though. Kind of like the subconscious version of a 2 week cleanse.

2) I am, at heart, a night creature. I’ve denied this for ages, because for some reason I had some deep resolution that my being a night person was “bad.” The world, after all, does not cater to us very well. But screw that. I harbor tons of nocturnal energy, and this can’t be corrected by a rigid sleep schedule, which I think causes more harm than good. I’ve started working out at midnight, doing my grocery shopping at 1, going to bed around 2 or 3 and that’s okay, because that’s how I roll.

3) I’ve identified my napping needs more closely. I tend to need a small nap in the early afternoon, even if it’s just 45 minutes, to kick me back into gear. Around 3:00pm seems a good time. This is often followed by a longer, evening nap. I used to get so stressed about taking naps at 8:00 at night, worrying that it would “mess up my sleep schedule,” but now that I’ve embraced point number 2, I’m much less worried about it (and being less worried means I get to bed more easily when I do sleep at 2 or 3).

Overall during the test, my sleeping periods tended to be vastly erratic. At first I was concerned about this, but I think what I learned is that spaced out, shorter blocks of sleep just work better for me in general. This is roughly what my most comfortable sleep schedule has ended up being…

2:30am – 8:30am (6 hours, my “main” night time sleep)
3:00pm – 4:00pm (1 hourish, my afternoon nap)
8:00pm – 11:00pm (3 hours, my evening nap)

With this, I still get the 9-10 hours of sleep that I seem to need a day, and I’m not tired during the day or stressed out about the fact that I’m staying up late. I imagine that on the weekends I will let myself sleep more freely, to catch up on any deficit, and I will stop beating myself up over it.

One thing that has helped me IMMENSELY during this experiment was this little device, the Sleeptracker Pro: http://www.sleeptracker.com/

Jesse lent it to me. Basically, it is a watch with an accelerometer in it that you wear at night. It detects “near-awake” periods based on your movement. When you set your alarm to wake up, you give it a window of time instead of an exact time, and the alarm won’t go off until it detects a “near-awake” moment in your sleep cycle during that window. Thus, you’re more likely to get woken up when you are in the light stage of sleep, versus being yanked out of REM or stage 4 sleep, and all groggily.

I’m normally not one for gadgets, but I’m in love with this thing, and am going to get my own as soon as I am able (Jesse kindly is lending me his for the duration of my co-op, and I really think it will help).

So! There are my sleepy conclusions, and it’s midnight now…time to go to the gym! 😀

Personal Blog

Siiigh

3 Comments

Well, the tumultuous 48 hour dog saga draws to a close. Attempts to get my landlord to meet the dog and negotiate the pet agreement were unsuccessful. I sent him a lengthy email about it and we had a phone conversation, but no such luck. Resounding no.

In thinking it through, the thought of trying to find a sublet for 4 months and move and juggle my stuff would be too stressful for me to create a conducive environment for the dog, so I’m just going to wait it out.

On the bright side, at least I will still get to work with Minnow at the shelter as often as I like , and maybe I *will* get another chance to adopt him after I graduate.

On the flip side, GODDAMMIT!

Thanks to everyone who’s lent advice and support and whatnot.

I feel like I’ve had 3 months worth of drama packed into 2 days!