in my anatomy lab today, we were discussing all the muscles of the body, and our TA was often demonstrating what the different muscles do.

we got to the facial muscles and there was one that one girl at my table described as "puffing out your cheeks." so i asked the TA to demonstrate what she meant. i didn't see him demonstrate what that muscle did because i was looking down to write something when i did. not fully understanding that muscle, as i was looking up, i said, "do it again!"

i looked at him, and saw that he was pressing his tongue up against one of his cheeks, puffing it out. without thinking at all, i laughed, which made everyone else who had been holding in their laughs laugh too. the TA turned really red.

i honestly had no intentions of embarassing him when i asked him to do it again, but it was definitely the funniest moment i've had here for a little while.

i have had many people from warm climates tell me that after it gets below freezing, you can't really tell a difference in how cold it is. they think that the difference between say, 20 and 10, is not distinguishable to us. some of them seriously have argued with me when i try to tell them that there IS a difference.

what do they know?

i miss the *warm* temperatures--it got up to 26 yesterday, and i was about ready to go to the beach.

friday: intoxication
saturday: hangover
sunday: cramps

getting angry certainly is not so good for my health.
i am looking forward to getting back to normal.

i ended up getting the winter sickness that hits people generally around the end of january. it is mostly gone except that i still have a slight stuffy nose and a bit of a cough.

so the other day, i noticed that i had a pretty thick film on my tongue. and i remembered to use my tongue scraper. it was pretty gross scraping all that stuff off. i am not normally a person who produces a lot of mucus, but because i was sick, my body was producing more.





well, directly after i finished scraping my tongue, i could suddenly taste my food and my entire mouth felt much cleaner. and, as an added benefit, i noticed that my nostrils were way less clogged, too.

another technique that is extremely helpful to most people is using the neti pot. you pour a salt water solution (the same temperature as your body temp and the same saltiness as your tears) through your nostrils. it goes in one nostril and out the other and then you blow the excess mucus out. it really gets rid of any clogs.



i get allergies at the end of august ever year (ragweed). during that time, i use the neti pot several times a day. it honestly made me not even notice any effects of my allergies.


these techniques are designed to get rid of ama, which are the toxins that accumulate in your body when it's not running in tip-top shape. we have ama even when our body is healthy, it's produced from incomplete digestion, whether physical or emotional. ama accumulates much more when we are imbalanced physically or spiritually.

i should probably get myself to a yoga class soon, too. ama, be gone!

so, my first two weeks of school, i was proud of how well i handled the enormous transition i just went through. i was not getting stressed at all about the fact that i suddenly was extremely busy all the time. i just moved in to a new house and greeted everyone (even the cat i caught peeing on my bed) with a smile. i even tricked my roommate in to thinking that i was a morning person because i would have a happy thought as i walked in to the kitchen and would come in every morning smiling.

well, yesterday, the last day of my third week, it got to me. i found myself in the computer lab at ub getting frustrated because i have to learn a whole new email program that is not user friendly in the slightest. i was emailing my pharmacology professor who i cannot stand. it takes a LOT for me to not like someone. i don't care who you are or how you express yourself, as long as you are a good person. if i can find some sliver of good in you, if i know that you live your life in a way that expressed that you are trying to identify with that part of you that is good.

it's hard for me to find the goodness in this professor. he has done all of these things:

1. came in to class around fifteen minutes late on the first day of class, which doesn't start until 6:45 pm. he said he got stuck at an intersection at ub for all that time. yes, it was snowing, but you are the professor. you make it a point to leave earlier to get to class on time.

2. spends the entire time READING the power point notes he made for the class. really, he doesn't explain anything, and the slides that he created have a ton of vocabulary that only someone who had taken a number of courses that were not even prerequesites for the class would know.

3. tells jokes. if you are a good teacher and you tell jokes, i will appreciate them. if you are doing it as a way to trick students in to liking you, i do not appreciate it at all. i was pretty much growling each time he wasted our time telling us something that did not pertain to the class.

4. lies. yes. in one of his "jokes," he gave us medical misinformation. he was describing the way an epidural is done and he pantomimed a needle that was over twice the size of the size that is really used. he continued his joke for dramatic effect, raised an eyebrow, and said in a scary voice, "does that scare you, punk?"
i was very, very glad to see that one of the students in class called him on how he exaggerated the size of the needle. the teacher then demonstrated the correct needle size.

5. on the second night he was lecturing, he stopped mid sentence to completely embarass this korean girl who was videotaping his lecture. i mean, he was RUDE in a bad way. i know the other students in class feel like i do about this as well.
i know my lecture is recorded on the ub website, and if i were computer literate, i would find that clip and post it here. i cannot describe how horrible he was to this girl. i really think he should be fired or at least be given a severe warning for what he did.

so,

i did all these things i'm not proud of yesterday at the ub library:

--i said and/or muttered "fuck" aloud at least six times in the computer lab.

--i wrote "fucking asshole professor" on the quiz i just took when the teacher i just described put a trick question on the quiz.

--i was unpleasant to the librarians when they couldn't find a book on reserve.

---i sent a theatening email to the company that i ordered my book from on amazon.com because it was supposedly delivered 10 days ago and i never got it. they had not responded to my previous request to contact UPS about this. (the bad news is that they responded within 10 minutes of recieving my threatening email, when they did not respond to the kind email i had sent them four days earlier.)

--when i was trying to figure out how to do something on my ub email, i sent myself a test email, in which i wrote "grrr."

i was so disappointed in myself.


i decided to remedy all of that by drinking a lot of beer and smoking SO MUCH pot and more cigarettes than i had smoked during the last week combined. at least i had a very, very fun night partying with all the people i used to live with next to pano's. i got to hang out with at least 10 people during the night and it was fun. i guess everyone's gotta let off some steam sometimes, right?

i learned yesterday in my microbiology class that there is a brand-new STD called MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). it is caused by a superbug. it's a kind of staph infection, which is a really gross kind of infection. i've seen what it does to people's skin, i'd hate for that to affect my love hole.

from wikipedia:
Recently, due to overuse of antibiotics, strains of S. aureus have evolved to become resistant to certain drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus


if we didn't overuse antibiotics, we could still treat this infection. there are antibiotics in our animal feed and water supply and there's not a whole lot we can do about that. this is really sad and upsetting and will lead to more and more diseases that are resistant to antibiotics.

if you like to buy antibiotic soaps, you may be helping yourself a tiny bit (not really, because you are also killing the millions of good bacteria that we have that protect us), but you are hurting everyone else and harming our earth.

i must say that I am completely impressed with ECC. i decided to take microbiology there instead of ub because i figured it would be cheaper and easier. and it turns out that i keep hearing the students at ub complaining about how hard their microbiology class is, while my teacher at ecc is straightforward and and wonderful. he is so excited about microorganisms and we actually learn about what's new in the world of microbiology. (when i went to look up MRSA on the internet, i found that it was released yesterday that it is transmitted sexually.) he really keeps on top of things. microbiology was the class i was dreading the most this semester, because i really don't have a huge interest in bacteria and the like. but because my teacher is so great, it will end up being the class that i remember the most from.

also, the class size at ecc is great. there are only 8 people in my class. in the three science classes i'm taking at ub, there are between 200-300 people in each class. i really like to ask questions in class, but when there are hundreds of other studens, i feel that my questions should not be asked because if everyone asked the same amount of questions as me, there would be no time for the lecture.

anyway, i heart ecc. it is the most convenient location that anyone could ever dream of for a college (across the street from the bus station). everyone there is helpful (it seems i often need help with random things as school). and the veggie burgers only cost $2.06 in their cafeteria.

i just read that some peeps might be looking for housing.

i am living in a new coop on the west side, and we will be looking for some new people to move in withing the next few months.

we share vegan meals a few times a week and share all our food. we all take turns cooking and cleaning. when all the rooms are finished, we will have 11 good people in our house.

if you might be interested, give us a call at 881-7843

i love our ancestors an immense amount. i know we have incredible wisdom that came from all their experiences.

yet i have no idea why on earth any of our ancesters would have ever decided to move to an icebox. it seems near impossible that (relatively) hairless mammals would have evolved in such a cold climate. so, the nomadic peoples MUST have come here and to other cold places. but i can't understand why. i guess there must have been more food, but the earth was not yet full enough of humans to make this necessary.

actually, when the europeans came over, why didn't they all just move to the south? most of the old school colonies were in the north. it really baffles me.

it's 7 degrees right now. feels like -9. that is way, way colder than anyone keeps their freezers. i'd stay inside if i could.

i made it through what has been the most challenging day of work i've every had.

i gave a sermon yesterday at the unitarian church in jamestown. i talked about my time in new orleans and all the beauty i found there. i don't think it's something that people have heard before. people have only heard the bad things and about the destruction. i spoke more of the work i did there at the soup kitchen and the feeling that we were rising above the ruin. it's true, there was so much love there, it's difficult to put in words.

but wow, i was SO nervous beforehand. i really haven't done too much public speaking, but i knowi'm not nervous about it if i have something that i have perfectly written out and i can just read it. but since i haven't had a computer for a while, i didn't write it all out. that may have been a bit silly for me and caused me unnecessary worry, but even if i had a computer, i really didn't want read everything from a piece of paper. i wanted my message to be a little more personal and heartfelt and i intentionally left some stories to tell off the top of my head because i figured i would use my own words and be given a chance to look around at people while doing it.

nervousness. i practiced in the car on the way to church with my mom, and i started crying at least 5 different times. i am so glad i did this because i made it through my sermon without crying. (i did cry during some of the hymns, though. one of them, which is actually my favorite UU hymn, was so perfect that i couldn't sing it at all because i was crying too much. the words are at the bottom of this post.)

well, even though i messed up once, it went wonderfully. it did come out as heartfelt (according to all the people at church). and i will admit that it gave me a huge rush. i enjoyed giving my message of peace and love and knowing that people got to hear my positive words does make me smile.

one super straight laced guy in his 70's came up to me afterwards and said, "that sounds just like a rainbow gathering--have you ever heard of those?" yes, i assured him, most of us there are rainbow family hippies. i was surprised that he himself had attended three gatherings! you never know about people.


here are the first three verses of my favorite hymn, called "We'll Build a Land" the music for this song is really upbeat, daring you to take action.

we'll build a land, where we bind up the broken,
we'll build a land where the captives go free,
where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning,
we'll build a promised land that can be...

(chorus) come build a land where sisters and brothers, annointed by god, can then create peace, where justice can roll down like waters, and peace like an ever-flowing stream.

we'll build a land where we bring the good tidings
to all the afflicted and all those who mourn
and we'll give them garlands instead of ashes
oh, we'll build a land where peace is born

we'll build a land building up ancient cities
raising up devastations of old
restoring ruins of generations
oh, we'll build a land of people so bold

since i'm going back to school, i guess i need a computer, right? is it even possible to be a student these days without having a computer?

i remember that i even brought one to school when i went the first time. it was an 80/86. i don't know what that means, but even in 1993, everyone laughed at it saying that it was really old. maybe that means it was made in 1980 or something. i used that computer for four years and only really learned how to use a mouse after college.

so does anyone have any advice on how to find a used computer to buy? or is this sketchy and should i only think about getting a new one? if so, is there anything wrong with getting the cheapest one out there? i don't need anything fancy.