College and swimming and me becoming smart

College has been awesome so far. I've joined the swim team, become a Songleader in a tradition, made new friends, and am actually fixing my sleep schedule.


I've only been to two swim practices so far because I managed to get myself an upper respiratory infection. I also think I pulled a muscle in my abdomen during practice so Coach told me to go to the athletic trainers today. Hopefully they'll be able to fix me right up so that I can get to practice again. I'm going to be so buff (or swoll like my friend from Texas says) by the end of the season, I'll be able to lift a car with my bare hands.


College has made me think about what I want to do with my life more and more. In high school, I was just thinking that I had to get into college, now I have to think about the classes I'm taking and how they'll help me with my future. I'm thinking about majoring in Anthropology because I either want to become a Forensic Anthropologist or an Archaeologist. I'm going to have to take multiple levels of anthropology classes, history classes, biology, archaeology, plus the school requirements.


I might do an internship this January or this summer depending on what happens. I'd love to intern at the Smithsonian or the Maryland Archeological Society in Annapolis.

College Is Cool.

I've graduated high school. 

I've started college.

I FUCKING LOVE COLLEGE.

It's so much better than high school. There are so many cool people here, my roommates are awesome, there's all kinds of things to do. I've learned to play pool, and Call of Duty, and I've watched horrible movies. Most of my classes are fantastic, and I can feel myself getting smarter. The traditions are exciting, and the food is good, and I've just been feeling generally happy.

I love my college.

Stop Hitting Yourself.

I'm watching this show on the Science Channel called The Secret Life of the Brain, specifically the episode "Losing Myself."

It's about neurological disorders that cause uncontrollable impulses. One woman had an operation to control her epilepsy in which the two lobes of her brain were separated. It got rid of her epilepsy, but gave her so-called, "Alien Limb Syndrome." It's when her left arm and hand, do whatever they want. She describes it has having a "5 year old controlling the thing every minute of every day." The clips of her doing everyday tasks were very interesting. It looks like she just randomly starts waving to someone or tapping her fingers or even hitting herself in the face (I realize that reading this, you probably think I'm a horribly insensitive person because of that title, but I am a teenager and it was what I thought when that happened, and it was FUNNY); but she has no control over it. She went to talk to an Alien Limb Syndrome expert and he had her hold common objects in her hand with her eyes closed. She couldn't identify a pencil when she was holding it, or a regular dinner fork. She knew she was holding something because he put it in her hand and said he was putting it there, but other than that, she wouldn't have known.

Our brains are very interesting. Every since I got a book from my friend about a neurosurgeon*, I've been more interested in how our brains work. Our brains do a lot of things involuntarily: pump blood, breath, sweat, digest food; if they didn't do them, we wouldn't be able to survive because we'd be continuously trying to do all of those things at once. I feel like when things like Alien Limb Syndrome happens, it's almost like the brain telling us that it can do what it wants, when it wants. It puts a whole new perspective on the idea of free will. How free are our minds if our brains can take over a whole limb? (and yes, I think the brain and the mind are different).

Just some thoughts.

*Another Day in the Frontal Lobe by Katrina Firlik, you should read it, it was really good.

Blegh

Naps are going to kill me.

I hate them because once you take one you can't sleep at night. And I love them because it's beautiful beautiful sleep.

I took a nap today from 5 to 9. Now I can't sleep for shit, and being sick, that's kind of an essential thing to the whole "getting better" thing.

Nice People are Cool.

I stayed home sick today. It was boring and unpleasant and I hate being sick.

In other news, my mom went to Montana on a business trip. I went with her last year because it was in July, but I couldn't this time. I wish I could though cause I LOVED it there. It was really pretty and everything smelled good, and the people there were really nice.

I remember the cab driver who drove us to our hotel at like 4 in the morning because our flight was delayed from Denver. He looked like a crazy hobo, and had this scary scowl on his face the whole time, but he was so nice and polite. He put our bags in the trunk and then carried them to the lobby for us. When we went to New York, the cabs drivers just popped the trunk and frowned at you, like it was OUR fault they were driving around tourists for a living.
The lady at the hotel was nice too, she PAID our cab fair! She didn't have to, but she did, and when my mom protested she was just like, "oh we always do that silly!"

I wish people acted like that around here, it would make life so much more pleasant.

Violence on TV

The thing about Spike Tv is that it's geared towards men. You can usually tell this with television by looking at the commercials--
Spike : cars, deodorant, beer, off road vehicles, hot girls.
Lifetime :

Knowing this, I know that I probably wont like most of these shows according to the stereotype. However, I think I take different things out of their shows than most men do. For example, Deadliest Warrior. I'm guessing that most men watch this show to see the blood and guts and guns and swords and violence. I watch for the same things, but it different ways. A lot of the episodes have historical warriors in them, which is very interesting. War has been a very big factor in human history. Whole civilizations were completely based on war.

It's very interesting seeing the different war tools used by cultures and people that would never have met in the real world.

And it's still not over.

Today I got my Prom dress fitted.

I have to say, it's gonna be the most flippin' awesome prom dress ever.

I also had a school art show, which was boring.

And I am also sick.

My sickness includes; ear infection, runny nose, sinus headache, other ear is hurting, jaw hurts, back hurts, and eating food kind of makes me want to throw up.

Fun times.

It was a really really long day.