Things here haven't been too wild-crazy-exciting. But I have been working on that whole "let's be productive this semester" thing, and it's actually yielding some results. No missed classes[yet], my homework is usually done by class, or atleast done enough for me to understand what we're talking about and not fail a quiz. I have been going to the gym religiously. I am becoming a news junkie, which I have been trying to become ever since I started this whole journalism major. It takes awhile to get in the habit of checking the news, but Huffingtonpost.com makes it a lot easier for me to do. I like having a nice, print copy of The New York Times though, makes me feel savvy. Haha. But really, I've grown to love the articles I find in there. I finally got myself around to joining the college newspaper too. I hope I can write well for them, I haven't really had to write for a print audience before, but it shouldn't be much different than this. Except for less of my opinions and minescule tidbits about my every day life, hahah. Sometimes I try to throw something more substantial in there, I need to start doing that more.
Can you keep a secret? I didn't watch a second of the Superbowl. Dead serious. I realize this strips me of a few "American" fibers of my being..but I'll survive. I did watch Christina Aguilera's national anthem fail on youtube today though ;), talk about embarassing.
I honestly don't watch a lot of television to begin with, but I'm starting to get into the shows on National Geographic. I watched this special on Explorer called "How to Build a Beating Heart," that was pretty interesting I have to admit. Using the body's own stem cells to regenerate organs rather than sitting on a donor list, crossing your fingers that you aren't dead by the time it finally goes through. I don't know, I mean there's a lot of ethical issues behind the whole deal, and I know I for one am already concerned with the human population as it is--but maybe it could be a good thing. I would need a lot more research than one tv special to make that sort of call. They had this "skin gun" though, and I thought that was an amazing thing. Typically when you suffer a severe burn, it's a long, excrutiating process to get your skin back to a healthy state. It's hard on your whole body. I know what I know about burns and skin grafts from Tom, he was burned at 9 years old, and it was pretty bad..that's probably an understatement. I didn't know him back then, but he's told me about it, and you can still see the grafts though they've faded over the years. Anyways, on the show they had a gun, similar to that of a paint-spraying gun, except filled with your own skin cells, and with the aided percision of a computer they will coat the burnt area with adequate skin cells, and in a matter of DAYS, the skin looks normal. No removing skin from other body parts, no waiting for weeks or more to heal in a hospital, it's amazing what science can do. From what I could gather they're still working on getting it to be a standard procedure, but they have had a lot of success so far, and I think it would be a nice option for burn patients to have if it really works as well as the NatGeo special led me to believe. Another part of the video that was crazy, to see a rat heart beating independent from the body, that's a wow-ing visual. I don't know if anyone is like, into that kind of stuff, but here's the link to the preview if you are. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/4828/Overview#tab-Overview
I WANT this, so much. Splurge...??! Ahh, I don't know. It's on Etsy. I love Etsy. But I need to be conservative with my wallet damnit. It doesn't help that I can't allow myself to walk out of Borders empty handed. But man, this shirt is so unique haha. Why must I care about fashion?
I'm going home this weekend. I feel so thankful/grateful/giddy that I have a best friend who misses me to the extent that she'll drive down here and pick me up a weekend before the weekend my vacation starts, because she doesn't want to wait that long to hang out. That's a true friend right there :).
I hope that everything is splendid and well wherever you all may be.
Olive
