Heart

The heart. It fascinates me. It is my favorite subject to study. Hands down. Mainly because it is the organ that keeps me alive, but also, every beat of my heart is unique to me. 

Yeah. Believe it. 

 When I was in grade school, playing basketball, a mother of a fellow teammate asked my dad, "what do you feed that girl?" (I must have been playing my typical haphazard style of b-ball, i.e. run all over the court, sprawling for balls, skinning knees, and giving 5,000%) My dad responded with "Heart, we feed her heart." 

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to be sentimental. Deal with it...

I want to do a research study to see if heart size is actually related to how giving and caring of a person you are. The idea has been thrown around for thousands of years. Ancient rulers and kings in the Bible were referred to as having a 'hard heart', not willing to listen or accept change. Not freely giving of what they had. So their heart must have been tiny, right? And not willing to expand? Do you think they had a lower body temperature too?  Cold heart... 

For some crazy reason, these things are floating around in my head (Really, they are) when I should be concentrating on Purkinje fibers, the SA node,and which direction oxygenated blood vs. de-oxygenated blood is flowing... But sometimes I can't concentrate. I want to know the conceptual meaning of 'heart' too. Like how long you put your heart on the line for someone. And how long do you let them take care of it, before you yank it back because it's becoming all smashed and smushed. 

Yet, I think your heart can learn to grow. All hope is not lost. It feeds off of different experiences and draws from examples set forth from people before you. It won't be frozen and tiny forever.

But it's important to care, and give freely with a whole heart, because you will learn about yourself in the process. 

Happy Monday, have a heart 

Trying??

Blast my attempt at 'trying to become educated' in politics! It was a good idea in theory... However, the more I read, the more I come to understand I have seriously been living under a rock. Darn.

I will keep trying. I will keep reading. I will not give up on this task. 

This is the same motto I have for MCAT studying. Blast my attempt to 'try to get into Med school'. Who the heck decided that was a good idea? Oh yeah... me. Darn.

But I will keep trying. I will keep reading. I will not give up on this task. 

Here is my article link of the week: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/26/politics/republican-debate/index.html

Help me see the light! Someone explain to me what this all really means? Help me break free from the nice little spot under my rock!

Cheers to almost weekend... 

End of an Era

Went for a run this morning... It was super cold. Like get outside and try to breathe but can't, cold. Like being a fish out of water, gasping for air, but can't get enough, cold. Yeah, it was cold. But ultimately, my run this morning ended an awesome streak I had going.

   I hadn't fallen or face-planted on a run, since Halloween. Until today. Wah wah wah. Dude! Halloween!! That's like the longest streak I think I've had, EVER. Anyways, it wasn't too tragic. Just smacked my knees and slid forward on my hands. Kind of in a bent-leg downward dog. (For those of you who do yoga) Don't really know what I tripped on... As I continued on my run, I circled back to the point of face-plantage (I know, how could I? I kept an extra eye out for large rocks) and found nothing. It was like a little gnome ran out from someones yard and grabbed my foot and watched me fall for some early morning action. Oh, and to make this run even more glorious, totally got whipped in the face by some branches that came out of nowhere. A dear friend of mine would have yelled out "TRAIL RUNNING" as I got smacked by the bush. (Normally bushwacking happens on-trail, not on-sidewalk at 6am) But I survived. Made it back to my place with a crusty-ice face and one knee slightly worse for wear, more awake then when I left.

  In other news, check out this article. It's my news article of the week.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/18/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html?hpt=us_c1

  Let's hope that an era of free-knowledge doesn't end...

Hit the Ceiling?...

So I'm catching up on the news... or at least attempting to. And guess what I found out today? Check out the article link below:

Obama formally seeks debt ceiling increase

Posted by:

CNN White House Producer Alexander Mooney

    President Obama formally asked Congress Thursday to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, stating the country’s debts have fallen within $100 billion of the current debt limit and an increase is needed to meet “existing commitments.”
    The request came Thursday in a letter from the president to House Speaker John Boehner. The latest request is the third asking to raise the debt limit since the contentious debt ceiling agreement last August. That agreement called for the ceiling to be increased in three stages, giving Congress the opportunity to express disapproval at each stage.

    That deal, signed into law in August, authorized a phased increase of the debt ceiling by up to $2.4 trillion, with $400 billion of that kicking in immediately and another $500 billion coming in September. This latest request – for an additional $1.2 trillion – is the final stage of the agreement. Congress has 15 days to pass a joint resolution denying the request for the increase, which President Obama can then veto. In September, the Republican-controlled House passed a resolution against Obama's request to increase the debt limit, but the Senate did not.
    In response to today’s request, Speaker Boehner’s spokesman Brendan Buck said, “Washington’s mounting debt is hurting our economic recovery, and this request is another reminder that the President has consistently punted on the tough choices needed to rein in the deficit and protect important programs for American seniors from going bankrupt.”
    The new debt ceiling is expected to meet current financial commitments through the end of next year, according to the Treasury Department official.

   Dude! What!? I'm slightly confused about what all of this really means, because I can't fathom how much money a trillion dollars is... I have no concept of that. Thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, I might have a grasp on that, but billions? trillions? Good one...
   I guess what got me thinking, when I read this, is how defunct our nation is? I know there are people out there trying to crawl their way out of debt, and there are those who plan ahead and are careful about how they go about spending money and living their life... However, the overwhelming majority doesn't. Loans are loans are loans. Money is meant to be made and spent on whatever our hearts desire, regardless if it is within our budget or not. Because really, who budgets, when the people leading are nation are increasing the amount of money that we can go in hole? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems backwards.
   Then I debate with myself because I want to go to med school. Hmmmm, this will create a ginormous pile of debt for me. It might as well be millions, because I have never paid for anything that expensive in my life... So it will take time and dedicated effort to crawl back out of the hole. But this is what a very wise man has taught me (Dad);  if you can live like no one else, you WILL live like no one else. Live below your means. Make a plan to pay off debt as quickly as you know how. Don't let it sit idle. Attack it. Save and be thrifty, so you can live your life on your own terms, not on someone else's.
   Granted, I am a little peon, doing the nose to the grind kind of living, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. But I feel that our nation's leaders should have a chat with my father...

:) Cheers to the weekend
 

Smattering of awesome

Who is having an epic Monday!? Anyone? I bet not. Monday is a lame day. It's laughing at you. Really, it is.

    Laughing as you rolled out of bed, wait, smacked your alarm five times, then rolled out of bed a half-hour later. It's laughing as you stumbled to do yoga. Yeah, believe me. If you want to start off your day right, come watch me do yoga at 6:30am. You will laugh and laugh, point, cry tears of hilarity, and laugh some more. Monday is laughing at you still when you get to work and start studying physics things, like magnetic fields. Who ever decided that was a good idea? Especially when none of it sunk in or made sense, and made you feel that magnetic fields are a crock of poo.

Bah!

     To top it off, it's like 50 degrees outside. COMPLETE TORTURE FOR SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN A CUBE. Must. Be. Outside. Away from computers, and MCAT related stinky things...

But really?

    I've been laughing all day. Thinking about the awesome stuff that generally happens on a Monday. You can take it either way. You can get angry, annoyed, and let it follow you home so you have a crappy evening. Or, you can laugh. Laugh right along with Monday, the stupidest day of the week.

 Because in the end, I have a smile on my face and tomorrow is Tuesday. Win-win

Project News

So, I'm going to add something to my blog. I'm going to upload an article from the news, and comment about it once a week. I have never wanted to bury my nose in politics, finances, or worldly news, but I feel it's about time that I started to catch up a bit... This may be my way of finally getting myself informed! Woo hoo!!

Here is an article that I read today:

Zakaria: 2012 - the year of elections

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

2011 will likely be recorded as a year of historic change. Mass uprisings have upended governments across the Arab world. Economic mismanagement in Europe led to changes at the top in Italy, Greece and Spain. 365 days ago you couldn't have predicted these events. You couldn't have imagined so many leaders would lose their jobs.

So what if I told you that you can predict that in 2012, a lot of leaders will say goodbye? No, I'm not gazing into a magic crystal ball. You see, 2012 is the year of elections.

59 countries will be tallying up votes - local, state or national. There are 193 countries in the world so that's about a third of the world's nations. 26 of these may see a change in national leadership. Together, these changes could affect 53% of the world's population, representing half of the world's GDP. And a lot of the change is concentrated in the world's most powerful countries.

Four out of the five U.N. Security Council members could see changes at the top. That's Russia, China, France, and, of course, the U.S. These four countries alone represent 40% of the world's GDP.

Of all of them, China will not have democratic elections, of course, but it will see the biggest, wholesale change at the top. 70% of the country's leadership will be new. But we're not expecting any surprises - it's widely believed that Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will be replaced by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. So, get used to those names, you'll be hearing a lot of them.

Russia's election will be the most predictable. We already know that Prime Minister Putin is going to become President Putin once again. But even that change isn't as clear-cut as you'd imagine. For the first time in years, it seems like it's becoming acceptable in Russia to criticize the Kremlin. Putin was recently openly booed at a boxing match, and his party had a stunningly weak showing in the recent parliamentary elections.

What about Washington? One year from now we could have a President Mitt Romney. Or a President Newt Gingrich. Or another Obama term.

South of the border, that perennial pain in Washington's backside, Hugo Chavez himself, needs to win an election - though he rigged the last one. There will be changes too in Mexico, Egypt, Taiwan and Kenya, just to name a few.

Some of these elections and leadership changes involve nothing more than personnel shifts; others will be occasions for fundamental debates about the future course of the country. It could mean a shift so that we will see a different Europe, a different China, and a different America in the next few years.

So for those of you who have been struck by the volatility of recent years - the roller coaster ride we've all been on from boom to bust, crisis to crisis - I would say, keep that seatbelt strapped on because you're going to see a lot of churn over the next year. It may not be bad but there will be no shortage of political twists and turns around the world - and those are just the ones we know about. One thing I can promise, we'll be tracking them all right here on CNN.com/GPS and on my show every Sunday at 10a.m. and 1p.m. EST.

Whoa! Talk about picking a great year to start following the news!! :) Pretty sure I'm super excited about this new blog project. All of these changes that are going on around the world... I'll finally be up to date?! But I guess there will also have to be some background searches that go along with these articles too, since I really had not a clue who some of the people are that were discussed above. However, that's probably a good thing! 


Cheers to discovering new things all over the world! Huzzah!