To those waiting on the latest Grand Etang post....... you shall have to wait a bit more. All the pics are on my mum's laptop and she has it. Plus, last week of school = most assignments, quizzes, exams, etc.
I'm currently working on my Invertebrate Zoology lab, but I'm getting a head ache. Thus, I've decided to take a quick break to post something.
Mussels! Under a dissecting microscope that is... (taken with my cellphone camera)
Since I'm drawing blanks for a topic beyond the internal structure of mussels... Whilst sitting in the hallway, the late afternoon sun casted an interesting light and I found myself taking pictures - - - of my hands.
If you've been following my blog regularly, you would've seen that I've only taken to painting my nails as of recent. That and cutting/styling my hair that is.
I've already lost momentum with the hair bit, too high maintenance. I'm just waiting for it to grow back so my typical "librarian bun" can happen with ease once more.
As for my nails, I used to find millions of excuses as to why not paint them. Previously, I used to use pastels and charcoals more actively as a favourite medium. As consequence, I used to keep my nails a bit shorter and well, my fingers were constantly covered with pigment stains.
This year, I've taken to using paints more. So instead of fingers, the rest of my body and clothes gets stained from my wildness. I know, I know, fail.
Sooo... seeing I've fallen in love with my hands and have become narcisstic with it and for my personal amusement - I'm going to post my collection of hand photos thus far. You can stop reading now if you like...
And today
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It's been long overdue and every time I start a post there's been some grand intervention - be it power outage to random phone call.
Anyways, here goes.... updates.
Life Lesson # 11 : Death is something inevitable..
and as cliché as this will sound...
they don't lie when they say death always catches you unprepared
regardless of who you are,
the knowledge that it will happen,
and the amount of time you take for granted.
My uncle passed away.
Truth be told, I don't know how to feel nor how I feel about the death. I didn't grow up with family the way a lot of people have. I grew up with family in what could only be described as fragments of time. I have very specific memories of certain family members, and practically none for others.
My uncle. I don't have memories of extensive conversations, because that side of the family tends to be of men of few words, but I do have memories of things he did, his presence. I have a specific memory of how he spoke - kind of raspy and short. It wasn't anything personal, just how he spoke. His name was Donald, but I grew up hearing everyone calling him Pine, as in sweet pineapple (an old village nickname from his luck with the ladies I believe) so I started calling him Uncle Pine.
I remember once as a child, I walked upstairs to the living room where he sat in his favourite chair in front of the tv to deliver a message from my parents that went like "Uncle Pine, daddy asks if..." And he responded as - *shocked face* "Pine?! Pine? Since when you calling me Uncle Pine?? And not Uncle Donald??? *suspicious glance* Is yuh father that tell yuh to come mi dat eh???"
And I was caught offguard and surprised. I knew he meant no harm by it, and it was just a joke... But it was so funny how he said it that it always stuck. On my mom's side there's another family member I grew up calling Aunty Bougie because I heard everyone calling her Bougie --- only to realize years later her name is Sylvia or something like that and 'Bougie' is means sister-in-law in Hindi. (She was my mom's brother's wife)
I also remember his food. It was always oh so delicious. I have no idea what he used to put in it, but there was a very distinctive Uncle Donaldy taste to whatever he made that you would just know. One time when I was visiting Aunty Ingrid, his ex-wife (yeah, that side of the family is weirdly close knitted and accepting of everyone even if official ties have been broken. Aunty Ingrid, his ex-wife, and Aunty Glory, his wife, are good friends.) cooked and it tasted just like Uncle Pine's food... and that launched a family joke. I told her that Uncle Donald taught her to cook, and she explained that she taught Uncle Donald to cook - although his story says the opposite - and that my grandmother Nada taught her who in turn taught Uncle Donald. Anyways, Aunty Ingrid is the only lasting person I have that cooks the distinctive way Uncle Donald does... regardless of who taught whom. *sad face*
I didn't know how to feel initially... but then I found myself crying yesterday as I watched the photos my cousins were throwing up and reading their wall posts on Facebook. It's sad. I grew up knowing that house on the corner of Sutphin blvd. and looking forward to visiting it. It was the first place we went to in the States and NY, for the matter, usually. Uncle Pine used to pick us up from the airport before he got very sick...
Which leads to the sickness... We all knew he was dying... But I mean, he was dying a while now, but I don't think I truly anticipated it would've been so soon. I took for granted the bided time that we had left with him with calls I promised myself to make, visits I attempted to make and felt like an attempt sufficed because I kept telling myself there was still time... that he'd be there when I go back up to NY because this was Uncle Donald, he was there and would always be there. Whenever we spoke to him, he would always talk about how much better he was feeling, how much he was improving. I was hoping for the lung transplant too, even though I knew the age issue was a huge factor making it a futile hope... but I was hoping nuntheless...
When mom called to say he was gone. It just caught me by surprise.
R.I.P. Uncle Donald... *sad face*
***
The tone of this post is now about to change
into my anti-smoking campaign....
Aside from that, his death just re-affirmed my dislike/hatred for smoking. Despite the novelty and curiosity I found myself in within recent times, I'm by far not a smoker and I'm still an advocate against it. My curiosity days have long gone and I've resumed my anti-smoking mission. I mean seriously, it kills. WTF would you indulge in it still? *sigh* That would make it the second person I know that has died from the long term effects of smoking or exposure, and the third person to have gotten seriously sick from it. (that I can remember off the bat)
***
In conclusion... some pics I'm borrowing from
Xiaxue (she says it's fine on her blog) on smoking, since we're on an anti-smoking campaign again... She did them herself and decided to pitch from a different angle.
Xiaxue... (anti-smoking post excerpt from her blog)
I was just thinking about how anti-smoking campaigns are always going via the "soft" approach. You know, how it's like an addiction and there are hotlines, support groups and nicotine patches to help smokers quit.
Like they are going through some kind of unfortunate crisis.
Sure, there are also damn ugly photos on cigarette packets and maybe they work, but after a while, they lose their impact too! Honestly when I look at the photo of the reddish baby that looks like the baby octopus cold dish they serve at restaurants, all I think is, "URGH! That's hideous. I bet it's photoshopped for dramatic effect."
And when smokers see a photo of an abused, tarred lung, you think they pause and imagine that lung inside them and decide to quit?
No way. All these are effects that are not instant, so what happens is that they decide they willeventually quit, but not today. What's another week of smoking gonna do to a lung that's already soot black?
When you want people to quit smoking, you need to give them bloody good reasons, and because a lot of these reasons are not POLITICALLY CORRECT, nobody ever says them.
Obviously I don't mean that every non-smoker hates smokers. I have smoker friends. I'm just saying that I'd like then even better if they don't smoke. For example, if I have to only pick one friend to go on a free holiday with me, and I like both smoker and non-smoker friend equally, I'd pick the non-smoker friend. Why? Coz even if my smoker friend is really considerate, I still have to wait for him to finish smoking, thus eating up my holiday time. He'd ask if we can eat outdoors when I like indoors aircon and I don't like to have to reject people. I'd be alone while he smokes, etc....
Of course the opposite is true that smokers also prefer to have smoking friends but non-smokers WAY outnumber smokers.
Oh... and p.s. her stats include grandmothers, babies, children, etc...
and yes... I know her stats relate to Singapore... but I'm sure Singapore isn't unique with people who don't like smoking.
...And Shelli out.
Ciao
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I got back my results for my exams. Yay...or Boo...
I got an A on the Bio quiz on Monday. I'm not sure how I did on Wednesday, I have a sneaky suspicion I messed up the "write numbers in order" question. I should've written it out full. Oh well, I know better for next time.
Now... for those who said I should be optimistic about exams...
And.... Poli Sci.... Umm... to make myself feel good I shall split the results into two - 30 Multiple Choice questions at 2.5 points each (75%) and an essay worth 25 points (25%). On the essay, I made a couple errors on one of my points but I still did ok, I got 22/25. But, I got full marks on the last essay so I know I could've done better. And then.... -.- ... Along came multiple choice. I took my time, there were only about 6 that I was unsure about. I left the exam optimistic and nervous but by the end of Tuesday my confidence grew... And..... I got 11 wrong. -.- ... 11 * 2.5 = 27.5.. Fortunately the professor gave us a 6 point curve which brought me up from the 60s to a 76. Last time I got 15 M.C. wrong and full marks for my essay.
She made the point that if we're doing poorly we're probably not studying or probably misreading. I think, in my case, I'm just horrible at multiple choice... I mean after doing poorly at M.C. for 5 years that's the only theory I could come up with. After she went through the answers, it seemed obvious... and I felt silly because I knew the right answer for like 8 or 9 of them. I just missed the wording. The other 3 or so, were just facts that I glossed over that I thought I knew but couldn't recall perfect in the exam. Still an excuse is an excuse... and it doesn't change anything... It's just one class. Once I'm done with it I won't have to do it again... Hopefully between my late attendance and C grade average thus far, I don't do too horribly... But I'm learning about optimism and politics - they don't go hand in hand.
I'll study harder... Next exam, the last exam, I will do better. Yes, I will.
***
Now time for my best trick yet. (lol) My-oh -so - interesting- post.
We are doing the lungs now in Biology. Fun stuff. I'm really loving that class.
Firstly, my unrelated note, having an allergy is like having a cold - mucus build up leading to increase in sinus pressure leading to sinus headaches, watery eyes, etc etc. Everything that occurs with a cold because of irritations. So, for all of us who go "no I don't have the cold, it's just allergies", we're right. So tell those cynics, no you don't have the cold it's
really just allergies.
So air gets into your body through your nose, or mouth (whichever you're inhaling with at the time). **Breathing through the mouth can result in a sore throat because you are drying out the cells along in an effort to moisturize the air. The air has to to saturated with water. So folks, you really shouldn't breathe through your mouth, lest necessary.** It passes down your trachea, to your bronchi, then to your bronchioles. The bronchioles are surrounded by muscle.
This muscle is needed as a defense mechanism, which automatically contracts (which would prevent toxic gases from being absorbed into the body by contracting around and closing off the bronchioles before gas gets to the aveoli..I think...I need to check it).
Now for the fun stuff. For people with asthma, this muscle contracts the bronchiole, so air carbon dioxide(CO2) gets trapped in the lungs. This results in a build up of carbon dioxide in your blood, and your brain sends a message to your heart saying to pump more blood to get rid of the high level of carbon dioxide in the blood... which is all fine and dandy except for one problem, the CO2 isn't leaving the body, and oxygen isn't entering the body since everything is closed off. This process keeps on going, getting worse and worse. When the carbon dioxide and water mix it creates carbonic acid and your body goes into respiratory acidosis. Your heart keeps speeding up, the levels of carbon dioxide keep increasing, leading to an eventual heart attack.
The asthma inhaler dilates the air passages, so you could breathe again.
On a good note, the professor told us that should someone we know have breathing difficulties generally or go into an attack and we're there - give them caffeine aka caffeinated tea, coffee, etc (not decaf, must be caffeine) because the caffeine dilates the muscles in the lungs, and soon enough the person shall continue breathing normally.
That's enough for tonight. My next post shall be about "People who smoke have a death wish."
***
Shellll-ayyyy out.
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