Funny Valentine's Day Article

Funny article I found:

Students at nearby high school 'Fixing' Valentine's Day
Bridgeport, CT

Students at Bridgeport's Central High School have chosen a radical way of celebrating Valentine's Day.  Instead of the traditional giving of chocolates or flowers to significant others, the students have collectively decided to re-name the holiday and change the customs.  Rachel Weston, student body president, issued this statement:
"We know that most of us hate this holiday anyway so we decided to change things up a little.  We are calling it 'Single's Day.'  This is a day where everyone who is in a relationship, no matter how casual or serious it is, has to give a gift to every single person in the school."

This was decided only a few days ago after senior quarterback Josh Holloway and senior cheerleading captain Valeria Vargas changed their facebook relationship status to "In a relationship."
The statement continued to say:
"I believe that it is in the student body's best interest that (for the sake of all the single students and faculty) all couples, whether in the honeymoon stage or steady, should give gifts to all single students and faculty.  Also these gifts should be personalized and a minimum of 15 minutes of thought needs to be put into each present."

Student body vice-president, Mark McCray, added his own comments in a personal interview with the school's newspaper, the Central Intelligencer: "Yeah, I wasn't for this idea at first because I was getting ready to profess my love for Valeria.  But after she was 'FBO' (facebook official) I went with Rachel's plan for 'Single's Day.'  I mean, now Valeria has to shop for a present for me.  And it has to be thoughtful too!"

Rachel was overheard talking to one of her friends about what a terrible person Valeria is and how Josh would "really only be happy with her."

"I really like the idea behind this new holiday," said student government faculty adviser Ms. Cooley, "it is so great especially since my idiotic ex-boyfriend just became 'FBO' with this disgusting dancer from that gross club downtown that I never go to to pick up men."

-David Fitzpatrick

Mental Sweating

This topic came across my mind as I was studying for an Organic Chemistry test.

I thought, "Why do I get so tired after I study for a long time or if I take a long test?"

After all, I'm not working out, running, or playing hockey.  How can I be more tired after I take the SAT than after I play a hockey game?

After examining the question for a while, I tried to come up with a logical reason why brain function can tire me out.

At first I thought:

Well, I get tired after I use my muscles.  My brain must just be a muscle that expends energy.  Like my gastrocnemius or tounge.  But when I typed "Is my brain a muscle?" into Google, this is what I got:

"No.  Its composed of two things called gray matter and white matter, gray matter is made from the cell bodies of the nerve cells, and the white matter made from the bundles of their axons (which transmits the nervous signals to other neurons or effector cells"(site: WikiAnswers)

So, why/how does the brain need/get it's energy?

After a little more research, I learned a little bit more about it.

Your brain cells need two times more energy than the other cells in your body.

Neurons, the cells that communicate with each other, have a high demand for energy because they're always in a state of metabolic activity. Even during sleep, neurons are still at work repairing and rebuilding their worn out structural components.

They are manufacturing enzymes and neurotransmitters that must be transported out to the very ends of their– nerve branches, some that can be several inches, or feet, away.

Most demanding of a neuron's energy, however, are the bioelectric signals responsible for communication throughout the nervous system. This nerve transmission consumes one-half of all the brain's energy (nearly 10% of the whole body's energy).

Thank you Wikipedia!

Ok so now this makes a lot of sense!  The brain cells need two times the amount of energy that your normal cells need.  So, for every hour I spend totally devoted to studying or completely invested in a text, it is (time to break out the calculator!) like two hours of physical work.

Well, that is not entirely true because there is plenty of overlap in the types of work.  You use your brain to communicate with your muscles so you are using brain cells when moving.  Then you can't really know if it is just your brain making you tired during or after a test.

I know that I move my wrist, fingers and arm during a test to write my answers down.  
But surely that can't take up too much energy.  Can't it?

Maybe I unintentionally twitch my leg up and down while thinking about a question.
Again, how can only that be the cause of my exhaustion?

I was not doing any physically demanding processes at all during the test to have gotten that tired afterwards.  It must have been the thinking!

I want to call to your attention exactly how tired I got after taking the SAT.
Once I got home, I laid on the couch the rest of the afternoon watching movies and dozing off multiple times.  I didn't talk.  I didn't move.  I didn't even get up to get food when I was hungry.  All I wanted to do was nothing.

Now perhaps I was being a bit dramatic. (It is very likely given my dramatic nature) But I was very tired and I know I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

This was where I was going to give you an example of a person who just recently took the SAT and said she was tired and all she wanted to do was nap after the test and not move from her bed...

Well, when I called my sister to ask her about how she felt after taking the test, she said she was relieved.  That wasn't the answer I was going for so I asked her if she felt tired at all after taking the test...

She said no...

Well, now I don't know if I'm the crazy one or she is.

I'm leaning towards me being the crazy one.  And if that is true then why are you reading a crazy person's blog?

Not just any crazy person either.  Someone who thinks thinking is so physically demanding that he must sleep after taking tests.  I mean just thinking about this brain stuff has gotten me all tuckered out.

Happy Valentines day everyone!  
I love you all!

"Romanticism"

Today was the first "snow day" at Notre Dame in over 10 years.  The University has brain-washed it's students into believing that school will never close because of the weather.  So I must say that I have lived through a rare event: a Notre Dame "snow day." 
It wasn't just any old winter day in South Bend either.  True there was snow on the ground and most places it was higher than my knees, but it was sunny outside.  There was no (seemingly never ending) cloud cover that prevented the Vitamin D from hitting my skin, entering my body, controlling the calcium absorption in my intestines and keeping my bones strong and unbreakable.
It turned out to be a beautiful day: sunny, snow-white, restful, and fun.

Now it is the evening and it has started snowing.  It isn't the blizzard conditions that we had last night but, instead, it is beautiful snow falling slowly in large flakes that stick to my nose and eyelashes.

This brings me to a comforting thought: romance and love.

My Calculus TA, Yen-Chang Huang, took the first 20 minutes of our first class to tell us his life story.  He told us where he is from: Taiwan. 
He told us how many years he has been a graduate student at ND: 5. 
He told us what he was studying in Mathematics: i dont remember. 
And he told us why he came from the tropical climate of his home to the cold tundra-like climate of South Bend, Indiana: he thinks thought that snow was romantic.

He got this idea from the movies that he watched back home in Taiwan.  He described a scene from a movie that he watched to us that developed this ideology.

The description went something like this:
"Sow u know win da man and da woman are outside in da end a da movie, riiiight? riiiiiiight?"
"Weeell, u know win day kiss da snow starts falling and ahhh u know its soo romantic!"

Yes, it is true that winter and snow bring out a romantic feeling in most people.  But, there is also the  frustrated/mad/upset feeling that blizzard weather brings which counter acts any good feeling that the winter once gave you.

I have experienced both of these feelings in the past 24 hours.  Walking back to my dorm last night in a windy snowy storm (that some call blizzards) and trudging through the ever-increasing deep snow gave me an upset feeling for a few moments.  However, that was soon quashed by a good feeling of accomplishment - that I was conquering a bone-chilling, frost-biting storm.  But, this evening, I saw a beautiful, calm, still snowfall.  A snowfall that one would associate with a romantic scene.

It gets me thinking about romance and love.  A fun thought to entertain. 
It is something that is, easily, within my reach.

After all this is Notre Dame.  Anyone can find Our Lady.  Now all I have to do is find "my lady."  Which will be harder since she won't be gilded in gold or on top of a golden dome.

But, as of now, Our Lady is on top of a dome that looks more white than golden...

Happy Snowpocalypse everyone!

Seven degrees

I woke up and found myself checking the temperature outside.  When it turned out to be seven, I put on my t-shirt, sweater, and jacket and headed outside towards my Organic Chemistry class.  It was only snowing slightly this morning.  So not a big deal right?  Wrong.

It didn't stop snowing.  It just kept on snowing and snowing and snowing.  It started to get heavier as the day went on.  More and more snow is covering the quads.  More and more snow is covering the parked bicycles.  More and more snow is sticking to the golden dome.

Well it is now what the Texan in me calls the "heat of the day" and it had warmed up a decent amount...

if you call two degrees decent.

We still haven't hit the double digits today and supposedly tonight isn't going to be any better.  The meteorologists have predicted that we shall reach negative ten degrees with a wind chill of negative eighteen.

Hello winter.

I've been thinkin about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it?

2010 is no more.

So now I've been thinking about my doorbell.  I've been thinking about who or what is going to ring it this year.

I had a lot of things and people ring my doorbell last year.  (One could say I had my bell rung several times) 
Everything that happened last year ~ it is what it is. 
The good and the bad, the sweet and the sour, all of it is in the past.  But when I take a long enough look at it all, a lot of fantastic things have happened to me and I am extremely grateful for each and every one of them.

But on to the new, the inevitable, the exciting, the unexplored frontier.  That is why I like the future.  It is ready for me to uncover, discover, or create.  No one has explored it before me.  Leif Erickson didn't see it before I did.  Watson and Crick didn't discover it before me.  I get to discover it all on my own.

And I've got a good feeling about 2011...
I've got some decent resolutions that I can keep.
I'm lacing up the old skates for a new season of hockey (this time in South Bend).
I've got a renewed sense of purpose.

But most of all...


I feel like something beautiful is just around the corner.

Graceful rooms of Alabaster stone

Yep, I'm home.

I'm incredibly excited to be here with my family, friends, and dog again.

I've traded in below freezing weather for 70 degrees.  I'm seeing family and friends everyday.  I'm not thinking about classes at all.  I'm dancing, singing, joking, and chilling with no worries.

I've been home for just over 2 days and have done so much already.  Swing dancing, partying, visiting friends, visiting family, watching Tangled, late night Taco Bell runs...

There isn't any reason to be worried cause I'm home.

I'm just incredibly ready for all the partying that takes place during this awesome holiday season.  This Christmas and New Years are shaping up to be the best ones ever.

I'll just have to save my "look back at 2010" for my new year's post.

But, for now, it is good to be back at a place where everyone knows my name.

Everything's goin my way

You know everything's going your way when you walk into your room and it naturally smells like root beer.

You know everything's going your way when your rector texts you during Biology to see if you can play floor hockey with him tonight.

You know everything's going your way when you are consistently 2 problems ahead of your calculus class.

You know everything's going your way when it is snowing so much that you can't see what is across the quad and you are awe struck by the beauty of the snow.

You know everything's going your way when you share laughs, sing songs, and smile at friends while walking around campus.

You know everything's going your way when everywhere you go there are Christmas decorations or Christmas music being played.

You know everything's going your way when your old buddies are happy for you.

You know everything's going your way when you realize that Oklahoma isn't good for nothing because of this song.

You know everything's going your way when you say a funny joke to Brandon and he likes it immediately (and you know he will laugh out loud every time he thinks about it).

You know everything's going your way when you can't wait to read your friend's philosophy paper because it is going to be the best paper in the world.

You know everything's going your way when your school's football team is put in a bowl in your home state.

You know everything's going your way when you have plans to swing dance as soon as you get home for winter break.

You know everything's going your way when you catch multiple snowflakes on your tongue.

You know everything's going your way when you carpe diem.

You know everything's going your way when your grandfather friends you on facebook.

You know everything's going your way when you listen to an 82 yr old poet's interview about how great life is and you just can't stop agreeing with him.

You know everything's going your way when you are living the dream at Notre Dame.

You know everything's going your way when it is cold outside but you are so warm on the inside.

You know everything's going your way when some random person says I enjoy your singing after Bio class.

You know everything's going your way when you eat fresh (subway).

You know everything's going your way when you haven't forgotten a lyric to any of the songs you have been singing all day.

You know everything's going your way when you are so excited and you don't know why.



Thank you wolverine for the song.