Apparently, the NFL can go so far as to need the cane, a seeing eye dog, and the glasses, even after laser eye surgery.
Check out this article before you do anything else. Read it a million times over.
Now, check out this video. Watch it closely, and as many times as needed to get every single flipping detail in:
For clarifying purposes, the defender who hit Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin from behind is Jets safety Kerry Rhodes. The safety who collided head-on into Boldin is Eric Smith.
Now, you tell me. Exactly which safety should be getting fined; Smith, or Rhodes? Comment on this; it’s gonna be a full-blown discussion. This conversation is hopefully gonna last longer than the more intelligent ones I tried to start. Hell, maybe Derek will actually freakin’ comment this time too. It doesn’t take much brain to see who truly is the one who actually deserves the fine.
I don’t know how many of you know I use Twitter, but I do, and on it I said I was having payroll problems. Basically, I haven’t got my paycheck from last Friday, and no one knows where it is. What fun. I went down to the office about half an hour ago, and left them a message, because neither payroll coordinators were there… and I just got a phone call. They’re gonna try to sort this out. I really think any department on campus here involving money is full of retards.
On to the rant, because I need to get it off of my chest.
I think, after years of observation, especially as of late, my dad is all talk and no action. Plus he’s a spiteful jerk, but I’ll get to that later.
“What are you talking about?” you wonder.
Well, it’s kind of simple. He’ll say he really wants to do this, or he’ll promise he won’t do that. And then he’ll either not stay true to his word, or he’ll half ass it and then wonder why nothing’s working.
First example: Waaaaaaaay back, in 1998, when we first moved up here, Dad promised me “When we close on the house, I’ll work on qutting.”
We closed on the house that winter. Can anyone do the numbers and tell me how long that’s been?
For those of you who are retarded and fail at life, the answer is going on ten years. TEN YEARS, and he still chain smokes and buys at least a pack of cigarettes a day. That what, $14, being wasted on lung cancer. And he tells me, over and over and over again, “Oh, I’m working on it. I’ve cut down.” Or, “I’ll do it after this happens.” and he puts it off and he puts it off. What, Dad, do you REALLY want cancer that bad? Or do you really not care about that promise you made me. By all rights, I should go ahead and throw away any pack I see. We made a contract a couple of years ago saying that he’d work on quitting and be done by a certain date (that’s LONG GONE) and if he didn’t, I had the right to intervene and make his life miserable.
Next example: Dad tells me in one of my previous posts that he’s working slowly to fix his depression problem.
Well, that’s obviously bullshit too, because I’ve yet to see ANY changes in what you do. You still live in your office, you still eat like shit, you take horrible care of yourself, and you continue to rot your brain with anime and manga. I can’t even have an intelligent conversation with you. My proof? When we’re talking about knees and kinesiology, YOU talk about aliens. You never talk about anything like politics, or science. The only conversations we EVER get into involve the anime you’ve downloading and like and think I’d like too.
Congratulations. You’ve succeeded in making me lose all faith in you.
That’s not even that half of why I’m mad at him either… so now it’s time for my message to Dad.
Get this through your thick skull; you bitching about every little thing isn’t gonna do shit. Stop acting like everything’s on you, because it ISN’T. The rest of us are trying to take care of this in the ways that we can as well. Oh, and by the way, why do you THINK we’re in the situation we’re currently in.
When you bitch to me about how it’s all on you, it’s always on you, this and that, what am I supposed to do? Tell you it isn’t your fault? That would be a lie, because it IS. Look, I don’t know who told you this, but life isn’t a joyride and a cruise to sit back and relax on. Life’s a BITCH, and that means, instead of bitching about it like a little brat, you’re supposed to SUCK IT UP and deal with it.
Among other things, the one thing that pissed me off was your SPITEFUL UNNECESSARY COMMENT. “Sometimes can you just be a daughter.”
As opposed to what, Dad? I AM being your daughter. Get it through your head; I’M NOT YOUR LITTLE GIRL ANYMORE. I’M 18 YEARS OLD, turning 19 in just a couple of months. I’m a sophomore in college with a career goal that I’m striving for. I’M NOT 5. Of course I’m going to talk to you more like a smart adult, because I’m a SMART ADULT NOW. Mom’s accepted it, so why can’t you?
If you’re gonna bitch at me about things that were your fault, don’t expect my sympathy and an “Oh, it’s okay honey. It’s not your fault, you did nothing wrong.” Expect something similar (but in a much more polite manner) to “I told you a million times, life’s a BITCH. QUIT BITCHING FOR FUCKS SAKE AND PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE DEEP CREVICES OF YOUR ASS.”
But for some reason or another, no matter what we seem to talk about or what I tell you, you won’t listen. That’s another thing that pisses me off; YOU WON’T LISTEN. What do you think I am; a retard? It pisses me off even more when you don’t listen to me WHEN I KNOW MORE ABOUT SOMETHING THAN YOU. I remind you of that health thing. Or did you already forget about it.
You’ll probably apologize, AGAIN. You might already have, though that message didn’t show on Skype. Just a “Just wanted to say that I…” Of course, maybe that wasn’t an apology and you aren’t gonna apologize because I’m in “the wrong” even though all I did was state the facts. Oh, and give logical suggestions to your fucking problems that you bitch about 24/7 instead of doing anything about.
You know, at this point, I really can’t take your apology seriously, because it’s just gonna happen AGAIN. You wanna know what to do to solve everything. How about you start by ACTUALLY WORKING ON YOUR FUCKING DEPRESSION BECAUSE AT THIS POINT, IT’S GETTING IN THE FUCKING WAY OF ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!
And you can say “Oh yea? Well I’m doing this and I’m doing that!” but it’s BULLSHIT. I’m not gonna believe any of it until you PROVE IT. PROVE ME WRONG FOR ONCE DAD! Prove to me that I should have at least a little faith in you after all.
I just found out that I didn’t make cuts. And it’s probably because of the EXACT same thing that happened when I tried out back in high school; I did good with EVERYTHING ELSE, and then I served horribly.
I don’t get it. I didn’t feel all that nervous once I got warmed up. And usually I have a really good, consistent serve.
NOT TONIGHT! It was so off I was about ready to kill someone, preferably myself, I felt so retarded, and I had a need to disappear. Better to commit suicide than homicide, because you can’t go to jail if you’re already dead.
Gawd, it ticks me off so freakin’ much. So folks, I officially have NOTHING to do for the year. No track, because I work at games on the weekends, which will OBVIOUSLY conflict with meets. No club soccer, because I didn’t make cuts. No club volleyball, because I didn’t make cuts. Intramurals isn’t competitive enough to actually be any fun.
I’m going to be so depressed by the time winter break comes up.
If you all couldn’t tell, I’m very mad. I’m done writing this post. Bye.
It’s afternoon in November, but you’re sure that the chill is usually more forgiving this time of the year. Not that it matters; it reflects your current mood perfectly. At this point, you don’t even bother trying to keep your hood up anymore, knowing the wind will blow it back down in some sick form of mockery as it laughs at your misfortunes.
You jam your key into the lock to the door of your apartment, and struggle with jiggling the key just right while cursing the whole time. Finally, you open the door—the wind aids in this action and proceeds to slam it into the wall, though you don’t care. Storming into the house, you turn and slam the door behind you, reflecting just what you thought about absolutely everything, and screw them for not understanding anyway! You kick off your shoes, barely registering the thump as they smash into the wall. The only regret you had was not being able to kick them at his head.
At this point you realize that none of your roommates are home. It was probably better that way. Nobody would be around to ask you questions. You stomp into the living room and fling yourself onto the couch, grabbing the remote so you could drown your thoughts in the TV. Humming, jumbled words block out everything else and turn your thoughts into one loud buzz. Except for the ones you don’t want to hear, of course.
He used you… he never cared about you…
You snarl, switch off the TV and jump to your feet before stalking into the kitchen. You throw open the cabinets, rummaging through boxes and cans before you grab a hold of a can of diced pineapples. You slam them on the counter top, and after having problems with the can opener, manage to open it. Unceremoniously, you grab a dish from the sink, dirty most likely, and dump the contents of the can into the bowl. The fruit makes a slushy noise before settling into place. You grab a fork from the same place and plop down at the table, shoveling a forkful of the fruit into your mouth. Immediately, you grimace. The pineapples taste sour and foreign in your mouth. You force yourself to swallow it and throw away the rest. It figures that even the fruit is against you. Sour and deceiving your expectations in the end, just like he was.
You throw open the freezer, the frigid air blasting you in the face. You scoff, and almost laugh outright. That’s what it felt like when you saw him just an hour earlier. It felt as it Reality shoved its fist down your throat. You come across a box of ice cream. Cookie Dough. It’s his favorite flavor, a trait that the two of you share.
Without hesitation you quickly throw it across the room. Oh well; you’ve always liked chocolate better anyway. There’s a crashing sound as it lands in the sink. Most likely, you broke several dishes.
“Like I could give a shit less!” you shriek to no one in particular.
You finally storm into your room and nearly rip the curtains off closing them. The room darkens nicely, giving you a sense of security, as if you’re shielded from the outside world. You throw yourself on your bed and shove your face into your pillow, wanting to suffocate. Instead, you inhale his scent, which lingers from when he spent the night the other day. It makes you want to throw up.
“Fuck you!” you scream as you throw the offending pillow at the wall. It slides to the floor looking pathetic as it sits in its poofy lump, seemingly staring at you pitifully. You don’t need its sympathy. You don’t need anyone’s sympathy.
“Shut the fuck up!” you continue before throwing yourself back down.
You burrow underneath your covers, feeling cold even after that heated outburst. Why did he go and do that to you? What did you ever do to him, anyway? He knew you loved him, but he took that and shoved it right back in your face. You hate him. Or, that’s what you wish you could say, but at this point in time, it would only be a big lie.
Almost instinctively, you glance toward the window. It’s open, so you can smell the air as it wafts into your room. It’s crisp and clean; most likely, it’s going to rain. You pull yourself out of bed and trudge over to your window, where you slowly, almost cautiously, pull open the curtain.
Unfortunately, you have a perfect view of the street, where the two of your drew a big heart with your initials in chalk for all to see. It makes you sick to your stomach, and you’re all ready to draw the curtains shut again, but then you hesitate.
And then it starts to rain.
Not immediately, but subtly. Drops of water, one by one, fall and hit the ground, growing in numbers. Soon, it’s a downpour. And the only thing you can do is stare at the chalk drawing as it begins to fade. White-colored water flows down the street to the nearby drain where it falls into the sewer, never to be seen or heard from again. Washing away painful memories, almost.
A small smile graces your features, and you turn and leave your room. Without even stopping to put your shoes on, you throw the door open. All is silent, except for the rainfall. You step out, walking on to the sidewalk, and then into the street. The water is freezing, but you don’t really care and you spread your arms and tilt your head towards the sky, closing your eyes. The feeling is exhilaration.
All is silent on your street, except for the rainfall and your laughter as you spin and dance in the rain.
————————————
I was bored. It sucks, I know, but the idea didn’t leave me alone, so I figured I’d share it with the rest of you. I’m going to say that it was ridiculously awkward writing in present tense, 2nd person POV… but oh well.
(Dad should especially read this, and maybe take my advice, or I’ll smack him)
Today, in General Psychology, we were discussing a little bit of brain chemistry. We went over the anatomy of a neuron (old knowledge—booooooring), and we went over several neurotransmitters in the brain.
Now, it just so happens that we went over dopamine and serotonin, and I learned some interesting things about them.
One of the more obviously facts about both would be that a shortage in dopamine and/or serotonin results in various problems, one of them being depression. There are difference with each of them, of course; serotonin regulates sleep and mood (insomnia is a result of a shortage in serotonin). Dopamine regulates motivation, the reward system (‘If I do this, I get this for it’), movement, and cognition. Since a shortage in either results in depression, would it be possible to have a educated guess as to which neurotransmitter is being under-produced by looking at the symptoms that come along with depression? For example, for a depressed person who has extra trouble sleeping might have low levels of serotonin in their brain.
That’s not the only thing I’ve pondered. I also learned today that a decrease in serotonin leads to sadness, anxiety, food cravings, aggression and depresson.
You’re probably wondering why I emphasized the food cravings in that last paragraph. During discussion, my professor told us that the body will crave foods that contain nutrients which will increase the level of serotonin in the brain. I looked up those foods—both for serotonin and dopamine—and here’s what I found.
Foods that can increase serotonin levels: chicken, turkey, tuna, salmon, kidney beans, rolled oats, lentils, chicken peas, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, baked potatoes (with the skin), tahini (sesame butter), walnuts, avocados, almond butter, complex carbs (meaning fibers, not starches) a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a ton of water.
Foods that can increase dopamine levels: almonds, avocados, bananas, dairy products, lima beans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and ESPECIALLY fruits and vegetables (because it turns out that dopamine is very easily oxidized, and fruits and veggies, which are high in antioxidants, protect the dopamine from those nasty free radicals that roam the body and try to mess with your system).
I also read that eating simple sugars, like candies, processed foods, etc, saturated fats (animal fats), cholesterol, and refined foods interfere with brain function. Another thing to avoid would be caffeine. In a sense, it’s kind of not surprising, because all of those things mess with the rest of our bodies, so why not the brain too?
Can anyone raise their hand and tell me what those foods have in common?
Vitamins, antioxidants, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, along with a smaller “dosage” of saturated fats (because it’s a fact that poultry, such as chicken and turkey, are in fact healthier than beef and pig). Good job to those of you that actually tried to guess without looking at the answers.
This brings me to a theory… a hypothesis (because I’ve yet to hear if this has been tested). If clinical depression, or even depression, is caused by a low level of serotonin and/or dopamine, would it be entirely possibly to reverse the effects, and possibly even cure it, by doing something as simple as changing one’s diet, instead of prescribing to them drugs that enhance the brain’s chemistry?
Let’s use my dad as an example, because he is conveniently at the forefront of my mind, and the only person I can think of who is clinically depressed. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in as bad a funk as my dad. He’ll deny it to you, he’ll say “Oh I’m doing fine.” In reality he’s not. For a while, he was taking Zoloft, and all was good and well.
But, for a while, he’s been off Zoloft, because we haven’t been able to afford the prescriptions (there were like, $80 per refill or something ridiculous like that). And he’s back down in that horrific funk (and then, don’t let him fool you—he may act like everything’s fine and dandy, but before he got this bad, he wasn’t living in his office save for the few moments he’d emerged to go to the bathroom or get food, and the few hours he’d go to his room to go sleep).
There are reasons why his serotonin levels are low; for the sake of his privacy, I won’t go into specifics. But his lifestyle habits contributed very nicely.
Now, let’s look at my dad’s habits;
– he smokes, which in itself is horrible (and he has yet to do ANYTHING about quitting, ahem ahem).
– He drinks a TON of caffeine. I’ve honestly never seen him drink an actual glass of water. When he’s not drinking coffee, he’s drinking Coca Cola, and when he’s not drinking Coca Cola, he’s drinking coffee. In between this is the occasional (more like rare) glass of milk, and every now and then a shot or two of liquor.
– He eats like crap. When he actually eats, he eats more meat than plants, and he eats a lot of pasta (which is actually a simple carb, which means it’s a starch instead of a fiber). I don’t really see him eat a lot of fruits, and he does eat veggies, but again, the majority of what you see on his plate is meat. He has an affinity for beef, too, I might add, and when he’s giving a choice of meat, will usually pick that. He’s tried to get me off of his back about his eating habits by buying these boxes turnovers, but upon looking at the ingredients, I found that they were more processed than anything, and had more trans fats (trans fats = cholesterol) than anything I’ve yet to see (5g to be exact).
– He has a bad habit of bottling up his emotions and problems (though I’m not too much better), and is usually always tense with stress. I’ve never ever seen him do anything to try and relax, and no, Dad, watching anime and reading manga does NOT calm the mind. I’m talking about meditation, exercise, things related to that.
– He isn’t anywhere as social as he needs to be, and believe or not, but social relationships can impact a person’s health, physical mental or emotional. He’s barely social; he doesn’t even really interact with us, his family. As I said before, he’s hiding in his world, his office.
While I have no idea if he’d be willing to actually do this, because he’s said that he’d try something, tried it for about a week and then went back to his old ways, but if he changed his lifestyle around—changed his little, went out a little more, engaged his mind more, and talked to people—chances are, his condition would get better.
But here’s the thing, and this is the problem with EVERYBODY. They will usually only keep these lifestyle changes until they feel that “everything’s better” and then revert back to their old habits.
Unfortunately, folks, this isn’t that case. These changes are PERMANENT. If you ate more serotonin-rich foods and got rid of your depression by increasing you serotonin levels, chances are that when you stop eating those foods, your serotonin levels won’t be sustained and therefore will decline.
So, Dad, this is how it goes. You want to stop being depressed, no? If you don’t, you have a LOT of things to change. Start off by ceasing with the waste of your money to buy soda that really isn’t necessary. Honestly, I don’t care if it’s a “treat”. It isn’t even a treat. You always have Coca Cola. Treats are occasionally, not every day. Drink more water. Go on more walks. STOP READING SO MUCH MANGA AND WATCHING SO MUCH ANIME. Come out of your office every once in a while, and talk to us, and I mean talk as in having intelligent conversations (like talking seriously about hyper-extending knees instead of talking about aliens). Stimulating your brain will help too. Stop eating such crappy food, and eat more healthy, organic foods. For example, replace those shit apple turnovers with real apples. And if you’re worried about the kids eating them, then keep the apples in your office. Simple as that.
If you need to go someplace not all that far away, then walk, or bike, instead of using the car. QUIT SMOKING. And you absolutely have to continue drinking water, eating more greens, walking instead of driving, and etc. Even after you feel better (if you feel better… this is still only an experiment). Going back to your old habits will only pull you back down in to depression, because your serotonin transmitters are so fucked up, they can’t continue to maintain those levels of serotonin without help.
So, questions, comments, thought? Leave a comment. Let’s start a second intelligent discussion. And for the record, that one before it, about the knees, is still open fr discussion of anyone has a thought to add.
I’m sure most, if not all of you who read my blog, know that I have a bad knee; a knee which I injure too many damn times, and therefore must have something wrong with it. It’s my right one, specifically, you know. The one I strain my tendons and ligaments in all the time? One wonders why I haven’t blown it yet, like destroyed my ACL or something.
Anyway, this morning I had Kinesiology lab and were were doing Manual Muscle Tests (testing a specific muscle group for strength and to see if there’s any pain, if there’s any at all) and goniometric measurements of the lower extremities (lower body, feet to hips, basically). Anyway, setting aside my minorly sprained ankle (which I may tell you about in a minute), I made a discovery about my knees.
Goniometry is the measurement of angles, basically. In kinesiology’s case, the angles are our joints, thus we’re measuring the range of motion of that joint. When measuring the knee, the start value is our knee extended, straightened, but not fully extended. When we measure the full extension of the knee, we’re measuring how much it hyper-extends. Sooooo, I got my knees’ ranges of motion measured.
When you measure the degree of extension when it comes to the knee, you prop the foot up on something—a sweatshirt, a book, something similar—and allow gravity to pull your knee “backwards” until it locks. My left knee was relatively normal, it’s extension range of motion was 3°, a relatively normal range. My right knee, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
When we propped it on the sweatshirt, it didn’t lock. This meant that it wasn’t fully extended. So, I tried to adjust my foot’s position, but by the time she actually took the measurement, it still wasn’t fully extended. But even with it not being fully extended, the measurement we got was 19°. So, I’m saying that my estimated ROM for my right knee is at least 20°. One of these days, I want to get a more accurate measure.
So, it totally threw me off when I found out my right knee was about 16° more extensible than my left knee. When I thought about it, I figured hey, maybe that’s why I’m having ligament and tendon problems with my right knee, and maybe that’s why I always hyper-extend my left.
So, anyone else have any thoughts to add to this? Any questions you might want to ask? I’ll answer what I can. So be sure to check your comments, because I don’t think I have a plug-in that notifies commenters if/when their comment is replied to.
Oh, before I go, I said I was gonna tell you about my ankle, right? Well, if I didn’t who cares? I’m telling you anyway!
Okay, so, last Friday, some of the female members of the track team met up to play Ultimate Frisbee (I’m not running track this year, unfortunately, so Coach probably hates me…). It was really fun and all.
So the field we were playing on, one of our endzones was actually sloped a little. You can sort of see where this is going. Well, towards the end of our scrimmage, I was on offense cherry picking the end zone. Kris… Kristen (?) threw me the frisbee, and I turned to try and catch it. When I missed, I turned back around and rolled my ankle REALLY bad. I felt a small pop, and it hurt like a BITCH for a while. I walked back over to our end (because we eventually scored), rubbed it a few times, and then shrugged it off and continued playing. While it didn’t hurt all that much (or maybe it did and I was too focused on the game to actually notice) during the game, when I finished eating and went back to my room, it was killing me. Later that night, it was swollen. With the advice of my good friend Steve (yes folks, he’s still very much alive), I propped it up on my desk and the swelling did go down.
I’m checking my ankle right now and… it looks like… there’s no swelling. But occasionally, when I walk, there’s a shooting pain that goes down my talus, and sometimes on the underside of my foot too. It’s not a crippling pain, but it’s noticeable enough to be annoying and slightly painful.
There you have it. Okay, leave comments with theories and questions if you have any. I’ll reply and answer what I can.