OMG! I Met a Cute Guy, Let's Check My Horoscope!

                “Oh my god look at my horoscope!  It’s so right today!”  I giggled as my friend passed me the paper reveal the secrets of the universe to us all.  “You know I never want to believe these are real, but they are so dead on right all the time!”  I giggled reading the paper myself.  They did seem accurate, but wait, I wasn’t reading my own horoscope I was reading hers.  Maybe we are connected by the stars?  I had to go home and look it up!

http://my.horoscope.com/astrology/horoscope-sign-profile-cancer.html

                I looked through pages of how fortune predictions worked.  Throwing out tiny pieces of meaningless information to see how you react to it and then building from it.  Like in the Wizard of Oz when the fortuneteller looked at the picture in Dorothy’s basket, real fortunetellers also use the context clues we bring in with us to start to develop a story of our “fortune” for us.  To me, that is almost just as worthy as a real fortune, a person letting you know exactly the kinds of signals you send out to the world is extremely useful.  However, where does a newspaper get its clues about my own personal life.

                The fact is, horoscope predictions are actually written in such a way that most people will see them as applying to their life most of the time.  An excellent experiment performed by the professor Richard Dawkins gave out just one of the daily horoscopes telling everyone it was the prediction for their sign.  A majority of the people agreed that the fortune was accurate, except, ironically enough, a woman who happened to actually have the sign used as her actual sign. 

At any given point in our lives, we are nervous about expectations and changes in our lives, we are hoping to find love and happiness, and we are preparing for great adventures in our own minds.   As humans we are naturally prone to facing stresses at work or school, we change friends, meet new people, and help old friends through difficult times, and we look forward to new things on the horizon for ourselves and hope for success and even see it amongst failure.  Horoscopes take these aspects of our lives and give us general overriding advice on them.  The advice can apply to such a vast majority, the odds of it applying to you are strong.

But what about my personal solidified description that describes me wonderfully and that doesn’t change… Well, the thing about those are that they often include very positive wording which people tend to want to agree with in the first place.  I may not actually be the deepest thinker, but if a horoscope tells me I am, I’m not going to disagree with it.  If you read through all the horoscope descriptions, you would find in general most of them feel as though they apply to you as well!

Sources:
http://www.cracked.com/funny-6269-horoscopes/

Organics, Mathematics, and Other Problems We are Loosing the Ability to Solve

“And then there are some things, that you are just wasting your money on, like organics!  People have lived for thousands of years without organics, and now this whole organics craze has got me paying double when my wife goes to the grocery store.”  My mouth hung open, I couldn’t believe that my well-educated college professor was saying this.  Living without organics for thousands of years? No actually its only very recently you could get things non-organic.  Its only in the past 50 years that un-natural chemicals have been used in the production of our foods.  Since then, we (Americans) have found ourselves becoming increasingly unhealthy.  That professor is not alone in his thinking, so many of my friends agree whenever we talk on the issue of health “Its just soooo expensive, I want to do it, but I just can’t afford it!”  “Going to a drive through is just so much cheaper and easier.”  It doesn’t stop with organic foods either.  Constantly we hear parents complain about how much effort it takes to organize children into doing physical activity and it is “just easier to put them in front of the TV’

We constantly say that we don’t have the time or money to eat the way we should, but is that really it? Or is it simply the big companies who gave us drive through lanes, video games, and cable TV want us to believe that buying into their unhealthy products makes life easier and cheaper.  When you buy organically yes you’re paying more, on average it is about a 20%-40% markup, however, when you go through that easy drive through you are paying 3X as much for the low quality food that you are getting.  Not to mention the cost of the gas to drive to the drive through for every meal as opposed to the one trip to the grocery store a week.

If you order off the breakfast dollar menu, you will probably spend about $3 per person.  Seems cheap enough, until you consider the actual math of the situation;  at home my organic eggs cost $2.50 per dozen, that is about 20 cents per egg, I eat my eggs with toast which is the most expensive bread you can buy (100% Whole grain, Whole wheat) at $7 for 16 slices, that’s 44 cents per slice.  So, if I ate two slices of bread and two eggs, which is much more food than the dollar menu meal provided I will spend $1.28, less than half what I spent on breakfast for far more.  The time you spend making an egg into whatever way you want (except for hard boil but you can make those in advanced while doing other things) is about the same if not less time than you will spend in the drive through on their quickest days.  The same formulas can be used for any meal and for all of them you can come up with simple, more filling, cheaper, quicker, and healthier meals every single time.

Eating Healthy foods is only half the equation, exercise is also part of it.  We always hear parents complaining that it is easier to put their child in front of the television than to have to go through the time and money it takes to organize them into sports.  However, they are forgetting that, it cost quite a bit of money for all the electronic equipment, the monthly cable fee, and that lovely air conditioning you have blowing through your child’s climate controlled environment.  To send them outside to play, is well, free!  Yep, that’s right the most you as a parent have to do is stick your child on the front porch and lock the door, and guess what within 5 minutes, they have come up with their own game to entertain themselves with for free!  I’m not saying don’t keep an eye on them, but children can actually manage themselves when left to their own devices, and first and foremost, they will find a way to entertain themselves.  Often they find entertainment, not by sitting down and lethargically staring at rocks, but by running around, playing tag, chasing birds, and getting physical activity.

The same goes for us as well, we say we don’t have the time to exercise, and then take every available moment to sit down, after spending full days sitting.  The key to our problem is that we have taken unhealthy treats such as fast food, cable, and video games, and tried to turn them into our lifestyles.  As a result, we have seen extraordinary obesity and diabetes in our world.  Our bodies are revolting against our own treats and failed attempts to spoil it!   Our bodies need healthy foods and they crave exercise.  So why not be lazy, and give in to the healthy lifestyle, because at the end of the day it’s actually easier!

Sources:

http://eartheasy.com/article_high_cost_organic_food.htm

http://jennifer.hubpages.com/hub/Is-it-Cheaper-to-Eat-Fast-Food-or-Real-Food

http://www.cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/nutrition_policy.html

It was Love at First...?

            “Do you believe in love at first sight?”  It seems such a simple question on first sight, but as soon as my friend posted it, she saw a flood of emotional responses fighting for possibilities and defending the honor of loves past and current.  However, as we all debated we realized one profound truth that we all forgotten in the simple question.  That love, itself, is not simple, love is complex.  Love is not a black or white fact, but a flexible emotion that we feel.  We cannot know if someone loves the way we can see if someone blinks, instead we must sense it the way we sense if someone breaths, we must assume by the warmth in the air and the signs of their motions to know if someone is breathing.  There are also different types of love we can feel and different levels and stages of love with in those types.

            Before I begin, I must pause to note that I am not talking about lust.  Although lust and love are similar and can be often confused, as they both are based in a combination of passion and desire, lust is a completely different emotion based upon innate animal instincts with the intention of continuously populating the earth.  We also must recognize that love is not something we can judge about other people.  We do not know how someone else feels love, and it is not possible for us to truly know.  All we know is what we feel ourselves.

            Love is an emotion based upon caring about someone or something else.  Therefore, like any other emotion, it can felt in a second.  Like anger, joy, and sadness, your emotion can change in a moment.  Of course, like all emotions, the more bases and more time put into developing that emotion, the longer it is felt.  You may feel love for something in a moment and immediately stop moments later because you don’t put the time into developing that emotion, or you realize that your original emotion was unfound.  It happens all the time with the emotion of fear, one moment we are shocked into fear, only to realize moments later that we had nothing to be afraid of.  We react to love in just the same way.

            Obviously, there are certain types of love that cannot be gained in an instant.  Although all types of love can come over time, storge love is they type of love that comes from slowly develops from friendship.  By the very definition, storge cannot be found in an instant.  Euros, on the other hand, are based upon aesthetic enjoyment and can easily be felt the moment you notice something.  Ludus, which is love played like a game of chess, is entered into the moment the players start to play the game.

            The key to love as most wish to experience it is in the recognition that love is an emotion that must be nurtured.  You may have had that initial feeling of care towards that other person, but you must develop it more in order to make it last over the years in the form of friendship, romantic relationship, or any other form.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_styles

Diet or Just Plain Die...

http://kimslightfoods.com/

            I was trying to be healthy, but at times life amongst the brightly colored boxes of a grocery store can be a rough road.  “Stick to the outside. Stick to the outside. Stick to the outside, but wait I need juice, V8 V-Fusion juice is good for you.  Ok, really quick in and out.”  I dodged into the juice aisle and grabbed my healthy beverage, and managed my way out of the grocery store without falling to my own temptations.   I was already unpacking my grocery bag before I realized I had failed.  By accident, I had grabbed the wrong bottle of juice.  I had grabbed the Light V8.

            I know what you are thinking, this is better for you right?  Light is better for a healthy life.  At least that’s what we are raised to believe, but throw that out now, because it is probably those light foods that are keeping you off the road to healthy living. For years, food companies have used these “Diet”, “Light”, and “Fat Free” labels to get us to buy things that should never enter our body in the first place.  At first glance, the “Light” label on my V8 juice seems accurate, after all it contains only 50 calories as opposed to the 170 of the regular V8.  However,  if you continue to read down, you will see that you are giving up all of the protein in V8 when you drink the light version.  That little cheat chart of nutrition facts is only the tip of the ice-burg.   Located not too far, hiding in plain view on the ingredients list is the true perpetrator.

            Sucralose, more commonly known as splenda, is written on the list of ingredients.  We also think of splenda as a health food, because it replaces sugar.  However, the truth is that eliminating sugar won’t help you lose weight.  In fact sucralose has been shown in studies to not only make you gain weight, but also negatively affect your body’s ability to utilize those few nutrients V8 light didn’t eliminate.

            It doesn’t end with just V8, almost all light and diet labeled foods have something in them to make them worse than if you ate the actual product.  The conception of aspartame, used in Diet Coke, can lead to not only to seizures, but also death.  Saccharin, sweet’n lo, greatly raises the risk of some forms of cancers and tumors.  Besides these health risks, these replacement chemicals are highly addictive making you want to eat more of them and, in the end           

            So what can you do to eat healthier now that “diet” foods are off the table.  Stick to the natural.  If you buy it the way you can find it in the wild than it is generally good to eat.  Of course, a variety is best.  Your body needs protein and iron in meets, the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, and yes even the fat found in milk and other dairy products.  The goal, is to aim for as little processing as possible.  The amount of sugar found in one processed item is often more than what is enough fruit for you to care to eat.

            Keep healthy, keep it natural, and do your research.

Sources:

http://www.campbellfoodservice.com/details.aspx?Code=1022

http://www.anh-usa.org/how-sweet-it-isnt-cutting-through-the-hype-and-deception/

http://www.foodrenegade.com/when-sugar-is-still-sugar/

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n&tag=contentBody%3BstoryMediaBox%3Ftag%3Dfacebook

It Wasn't Me, It Was That Crazy Jealousy

            “I shouldn’t care! I don’t care! Ugh I don’t know why I care! Why do I care? Nothing is going to happen anyway.”  I couldn’t say anything. I just had to let her talk.  We have all felt it before.  That bubbling feeling that fills us when we get those pangs of jealousy.  We can get it over almost anything from boys to grades to jobs to boys, pretty much if it affects us we can feel jealous about it.  Our first reaction is to reject it, to blow it off as something evolution just forgot to get rid of like appendixes, but maybe we shouldn’t.

            We may be creatures of emotion, but often that we forget that the basis of emotion is innate logic.  No, that doesn’t mean that you were right that the girl talking to your boy of the moment is truly a whore, but it does point to something deeper.  When we feel jealousy, we are given a window into exactly what we actually want.  Although other forces are pushing you toward that perfect romance, being truly jealous (not just the fake kind that you say to her) of your friend who has just gotten a cushy raise can tell you something about what you really want.  If you really break down why you are jealous, you can discover exactly what is important to you.            We are born into a world that tells us to want so much.  From individual things to lifelong pursuits in order to be happy, everyone is telling us to want something.   Advertisers are telling us to buy now, universities are telling us to be deep thinkers, our employers tell us to work hard, our parents tell us to find happiness, churches are telling us to make God happy our friends our telling us to have fun.  In all of this noise can it really be possible for us to know exactly what it is that we want.  Jealousy is like an alarm going off inside of us, telling us to stop and look that there is something you really want. 

            So why then is jealousy such a problem? Simple, it is how we react to it.  Because it is such a private emotion, for the most part no one has ever taught us how to properly deal with it.  In our own frustration of what to do with this strange emotion, we become angry and often attack.  Who do we attack? Often the very person we are jealous of, to rip them apart and take away what they have in order to feel better about the fact that we ourselves have not achieved it.

            This poses a bigger problem, because we have taken a person we have seen achieve our goal often coming from the same place we have, and we have turned them into an enemy.  What we should be doing instead is turning them into a mentor and to learn from their tricks to get what we want.  There are tricks to every trade, and odds are in addition to hard work, your friend has used them.  Studying how they did something can help you achieve it also.

            Instead of taking a moment to attack, we should be taking a moment to change our own course, to recognize what we want, and to become our own greatest accomplishment.  We are all capable of achieving what we want out of life; we just have to recognize that we want it enough to go after it.  After all, if you don’t want it enough to go after it, did you really even want it at all?

           

Sources:

http://www.futurescopes.com/advice/127/jealousy-sometimes-good-thing

http://www.askmen.com/dating/heidi_200/225_dating_girl.html

http://dating-advice.tv/ways-turn-jealousy-asset/

Free Birth Control for All Us Whores

            Wanting free contraception makes you a whore.  At least, if you are asking the opinion of Rush Limbaugh or his supporters you are.  Now, let’s face the facts, not a single one of us wants to give up on our birth control and if there is one person who wants us to loose our birth control less than we do it’s our boyfriends/husbands, and to be honest, although they don’t like to admit it, our fathers.  We as women are made to have babies, and society has primed us to raise them.  If the girls on 16 and pregnant can it, we can too!  On the other hand, there is no 16 and my girlfriend is pregnant to prep boys for fatherhood.  In fact most of the fathers on the show end up being exactly the kind of guy your boyfriend is trying NOT to be.  Our fathers also know this, and panic worse than we do when we say we are pregnant.

            Babies aside (we all know that is cost about a million dollars to raise a baby and that will fall on us if a woman is not financially prepared to have a baby), however, we all know that birth control does AMAZING things for our bodies.  The hormones lessen the blow of the much feared PMS mood swings (as well as all the other icks that come along with it).  So why would any guy (or anyone for that matter) near us want us off this miracle drug?  So, when that silly little boy makes a comment about our birth control, it is far too easy to get emotional, call him an idiot, and walk away.  However, there is far more to this controversy, and we all need to calm down pat him on the shoulder and calmly explain to him the true facts of the issue.  This, of course, means that we need to know the full issue, because if you get down to it this issue isn’t about birth control at all.

            The issue of Obama-care has been brought before the supreme court is not because of birth control at all, but because it requires all individuals to purchase a minimum standard of healthcare.  Whether you think this is right or wrong is your own prerogative.  However, you should be able to fight your opinion on THIS matter, without attacking or even bringing up women specifically.

            So why is birth control even an issue?  Well, under this new minimum standard, all preventative health care is available without co-pay.  Birth control, rightfully, is considered preventative healthcare.  Why? Well in addition to preventing babies, birth control also prevents uterine and ovarian cancer, symptomatic endometriosis, and the need for surgery for fibroids, it helps with PCOS,  PMDD, irregular bleeding, and regulates PMS.  If anyone calls into question the preventative nature of birth control, simply direct them to google or a doctor, because factually birth control is preventative care.

            The issue, was actually raised into question by Catholic bishops, before conservative politicians used it as a shiny distractor in their own campaigns.  Funny thing is, while these bishops were busy defending their pocket books, the Pope had actually been speaking out in defense of birth control.  Historically, while the church was against birth control, we must keep in mind that this came into practice during the same time when birth control was still unsafe to use.  However, now that it is becoming safer, the church has lessened its grip on it, in a similar fashion to the way that they now allow you eat bacon and ignore all the other rules listed in Leviticus.  Of course, the church still wants to remain in full support of procreation, the church has officially come out saying that although they are against the use of sex for a purpose other than procreation, if you are in a situation in which you don’t intend on procreating, go ahead and use contraception as it is not making what you’re doing bad, it’s the original action.  Nuns with in the church, have also come out in support of this new mandate because of its access to birth control, because nuns are actually out working with the population and seeing the need.  Also, nuns are women.  What it comes down to for the church, is money.  I hate to say it, but after thirteen years in a catholic schooling, I know fully well that the church is actually a business.  Sure, they are in a “noble” business of helping to develop our souls; much like a university develops our minds or a gym develops our bodies.  However, when you get down to it, it’s a business.  If it weren’t about money, wouldn’t these bishops have tried it and shown that the women under their employment weren’t taking the drug and therefore, they shouldn’t have to pay for it?  If they had used this method I may have agreed with them and said “sure don’t worry about paying for it,” but they didn’t because we all know the women working for them are on it (98% of sexually active) catholic women have taken birth control.

            So, why are we even debating it?  Because it’s a distraction.  Our politicians all know that there are so many issues in our world today that they cannot find the perfect answer too.  In fact, they probably could not even fight against the previous battle in a way that would win them supporters.  In all honesty how can you easily fight that one child deserves better preventative health care than another because of their parent’s income.  Especially, when they are both American children just like you or I.  Is requiring mandated health care the best solution?  It’s a big issue, with complicated solutions, which are hard to debate.  So, for a politician it is easy to throw up something like birth control and say it is wrong because it is immoral and gain backing from people who were raised under these old beliefs of the church.  It is easy to call girls who want something that enables them to have sex whores, but guess what buddy it takes two to tango.  When their opposition questions them on keeping birth control away from women, they can always say well I’m not against it when they are paying for it (that’s funny cause you didn’t say that before).  The fact of the  matter is when you give women birth control, poverty levels go down, and education levels go up and that is something any nation will benefit from.

            We as women, have survived for plenty of years without free birth control, and if Obama-care is thrown out for mandating citizens to purchase something, we shall continue to pay for it.  Were it is wrong is for these men to call women out as being “whores” and “sluts” or defending what our country has deemed our right as it has been in this health care reform.

Sources:

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20120215/LETTER/120219905

http://ezinearticles.com/?Birth-Control-Pills-Advantages-And-Disadvantages&id=372251

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/truth-be-told/2012/feb/15/does-free-contraception-all-really-improve-society/

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/italy/101227/vatican-pope-benedict-condoms

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/kristof-beyond-pelvic-politics.html

If I Go Alone, The Cannibals will Eat Me Part II

*If you haven't read http://girlworldvsreality.blogspot.com/2012/03/if-i-go-alone-cannibals-will-eat-me.html read first*

          So cool, last time we all realized that when traveling, that no matter where we are or where we go, we live in a world made up of human beings with feelings and emotions.  Sure there are a few bad eggs here and there, but in general people will pick up on your signals and help you out, you just have to be willing to make those first moves towards saying no.  Of course, no one is going to make a movie about the girl who got away, only the girl who fell for the trap.

But wait what about Hostel?  People had asked you about that one two, and well, those guys were taken right out of their beds.  They weren’t even travelling alone. They were in a group of GUYS!!! I’m a girl all alone! If a guy falls for that, how am I supposed to be on my A game enough to not have that happen to me without using a private investigator?   Well first of all let’s remind ourselves that it just a movie.  While some hostels can be sketchy, most of them aren’t secretly operating as a way to collect people to be tortured and if they are they are probably being shut down by local authorities. 

In our modern age, booking websites provide endless supplies of feedback on hostels so you can actually feel them out before you book.  I mean if hotels and hostels are operating under a false front in order to collect people to enslave, and you happen to book there even after researching it and getting a pretty good vibe, I’m sorry but that is called really bad luck.  Of course, so is having a pedophile move in across the street when you were six years old and you hadn’t even left the house at that point.  Sadly, I can’t sit here and say that bad things don’t happen in the world, because they happen everywhere.  However, I can say that they happen everywhere and you are pretty much as safe abroad as you are at home. 

Sure, stories of fatal adventures pop up in our newspapers and create a panic against travel.  However, over 32 million single American women traveled in 2010, and made up 65% of people going on cultural adventure tours.  In fact in the past 6 years the single woman travel business has grown by 230%.  If all of them were being raped, murdered, and kidnapped abroad, not only would this number no longer be existent, but those news stories wouldn’t be news stories at all it would just be what happened when you are stupid enough to leave your front porch.  Think about it how many car crashes make the front page of the Wall Street Journal.  In all my time of reading that particular paper I have seen none.  However, I have seen enough plane crashes to make me never want to look at a plane again.  Funny thing is, you are 12 times more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash.

People are funny that way, when I first decided to Virginia Tech, just after the April 16^th shootings, people constantly said “Don’t get shot.”  I lived less than five miles from Baltimore City (and actually went to school in the city) and moving was to a place where in the past 100 years there were two incidents of people getting shot, one in the early 1900’s and the other on April 16^th 2007.  Blacksburg is still one of the safest places in America and Baltimore is one of the most dangerous, but because every petty crime is a shock in Blacksburg, it becomes a big story which is scary and shocking to those on the outside.

            So, just remember to travel safe girls and live smart.

Sources:

http://gutsytraveler.com/2010/12/31/women-travel-statistics-the-latest/ http://www.hostelworld.com/blog/solo-female-travel-nine-myths-and-one-truth/155970http://www.airtravelsurvival.com/pages/plane-crash-statistics.htm

If I Go Alone, the Cannibals Will Eat Me

            “Wow! You’re doing all this Alone?”  She said flipping through my calendar for the next year, full of plane flights and hostel bookings.

            “Yep! I’m so excited!  I mean not everything is in place yet I mean you can see there are a few gaps here where I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet, but I have a few months still.”  I beamed showing off my life dream planned out, booked, and ready to be achieved.

            “Oh girl, you’re gonna die in human trafficking or something!” My friend laughed at me.
            “Yeah, but it will totally be worth it.”  I smiled.

            “Everyone has to die somehow; I guess it just wouldn’t be my choice of how I want to go.”  She said shaking her head.

            While she was laughing, I knew a part of her was serious.  My dream of going off and traveling was her nightmare.  Sure she wanted to go cool places, and do fun things, and take pictures in front of the Eiffel tower, but she wanted to it all from the safety and security of a travel group full of people she knew and trusted.

            She isn’t the only one who is shocked to hear of my after college plans, most of the time when I told people, although their said it was cool and they were jealous, their faces were afraid.  At some point they would work in “be sure to see Taken and Hostel before you go and be safe!” somewhere into the conversation.  The funny thing is I wasn’t going anywhere too intense; I was backpacking across Europe and Australia.  These weren’t war-torn countries where bullets would be flying down the streets on a daily basis.  They were just normal countries which held no more threating than staying at home.  Whenever the movies Taken and Hostel are brought up, I like to ask them if they have ever seen Glass House or Prom Night plenty of us girls have seen those and we still went to high school and  to prom and to babysit our parent’s friends children when we still weren’t even legal adults yet.

I admit, taken is probably the most realistic of all these movies as for something that could actually happen to a girl abroad, but lucky for us, they kept it honest, and you can see even in that movie the exact moment where Kim and Amanda make their fatal mistake.  No, it wasn’t in decided to stay in Paris alone, nor was it when they blared the music too loud for their neighbors to hear them scream.  Their fatal moment came at the very beginning where they met the seemingly harmless Peter in the airport.  No, it wasn’t the actual meeting of the boy that did them in, it was the way in which they met him.  They never asked him about his own life.  They let him question them without questioning what he told them at all.  They didn’t ask him where he was coming from, where he was going, why he was hanging out in an airport, where his bags were, or any evidence for his answers.  They gave out all their own personal details.  If they had asked for something or anything at all, they probably would have felt that creepy vibe people give off when their stories don’t add up and probably would have gotten in the Taxi alone and continued on their adventure touring the concerts of Europe.  Oh look fatal mistake number 2 they shared a Taxi with a guy and were dropped off first at the exact spot where they were staying.  Sharing a ride with someone you don’t know should make your nervous bells go off. 

Really girls you couldn’t have splurged for the extra five bucks to not split the cab fare, those girls were just too poor? Of course the bus wasn’t an option, because there isn’t a single bus that goes into Paris from Charles de Gaulle Airport!  Besides, how could they be rude to their new friend they just made in a city where they knew no one?  Ok so split the cab girls, but don’t let his French “politeness” fool you, tell him that you want to see the city a bit and would prefer HE be dropped off first, or be dropped off a couple blocks away, walking a bit won’t kill you, but he could.  In the grand scheme of things, five bucks really isn’t all that much, every airport I have ever been too, including the Roanoke airport, where you get the awesome experience of walking out onto the tarmac every time, has buses going to just about every place you could want to go, and being rude is always ok if your safety is in question people are everywhere losing out on one guy who couldn’t respect your safety is not going to matter in about fifteen minutes.  I can pretty much guarantee that you will never look back and think “hmmm, why was I so rude to that prick who wanted to rape me in the middle of the night?”  You’re just not!  There are plenty of people in this world, most of whom aren’t sketchy, so go ahead and feel people out and drop the ones that raise some red flags for you.

My friend Sandy actually had some guys try to pick her up in a similar way, she had gone to Las Vegas alone while visiting the U.S. from Australia, but was flying in from Orlando.  She was waiting at the taxi line when two guys came up to her and said “Hey mate, you Aussie?”

“Yep” She replied smiling. 

“So are we!  Nice to see a people from home on the other side of the world; wanna come out with us later tonight.”

“No, I’m meeting up with my boyfriend.”  She countered.  She could already hear flaws in their accent, and just had an off feeling about them.  She knew perfectly well that no boyfriend was going to meet her here.  She would venture the sites and shows alone. 

“We should split a cab, I mean Vegas is all in the same direction.”  The boys said to her, making no offer to include her boyfriend in their “awesome” adventures.  She laughed turning away to approach the cab caller when suddenly another guy grabbed.

“Take my cab!” The stranger said, “Those guys aren’t from your country and they aren’t safe.  You need to keep a sharp eye out here.”

“Thank you so much and believe me I knew, they weren’t Australian on the plane” She winked getting into the cab thankful to the kind stranger.

This is how that scene from Taken would actually go down if you are smart about it.  First of all, Sandy let her conversation and body language signal to others that she did not know these guys.  She also wasn’t about to step foot in the same cab as them or let them put her in an uncomfortable situation.  Lucky for her, someone picked up on her signals and pulled her out before she had to make a stand on her own.  

He Isn’t Talking to Me… He Must Hate Me

            “Can I ask you a question?”  Bea asked as I start to cut my Panini.

            “Sure, what’s up?” I said pulling the two halves apart gently trying not to pull the melted cheese out from between the pieces of bread.
            “Does Jake hate me?” 

“No why?” I asked tilting my head sideways.

“Because I saw him yesterday and, well, he kinda ran away” I couldn’t stop the bubbling laughter from rising from me.  Within seconds I was in stitches.  Bea became even more panicked “What? Does he?”  I had to control myself Jake had been in love with Bea ever since I had introduced them a year before by this point.  She had lived across the hall from me and whenever he would come over and she was there doing homework with her door open, he would say hi to her and then come into my room, turn on ESPN and periodically check up on her through the peep hole.

Since then, I had tried to get him to talk to her and invited her to group events.  I’m not gonna lie it would have been pretty awesome if they had gotten together.  They were both two of my favorite people and who doesn’t want to see their friends happy.  However, Jake was nervous around girls, especially Bea.  The day before, however, I had seen Jake while walking to a meeting and he ran up to me rejoicing “Guess what? I talked to Bea!!!!”

“Really? What did you talk about?” I said jumping up and down with excitement with him.

“Oh you know just generic stuff like hello you know” Jake said.

“Well that’s great!  I have to run cause I have a meeting, but I have lunch with her tomorrow so I’ll see if she says anything ok.” I said racing off with a smile on myface.  It had finally happened.  Jake had talked to Bea!  Or so I thought, unfortunately Bea saw it as he was avoiding her and even worse hated her.  Through all my laughter I had to break down and tell her the truth. 

“Jake doesn’t hate you, he’s had a huge crush on you for ages” I said laughing.

“Oh really?” she said screwing up her nose.  Clearly her concepts of how guys function had just been shattered.  After I spilled the truth about everything, I realized just how much it contradicted my own stereotypes.

Since the creation of the movie He’s Just Not that Into You, and even possibly before that, we girls tend to think if he isn’t constantly attempting to make contact with you, he isn’t interested.  Jake had just proved us all wrong.  Jake was in fact very much into this girl, but to the point that he had crippled himself, because guys, like girls, get those butterfly feelings and Jello replacing their knees and a heavy weight of sandstone replacing their tongue when they are around someone they are attracted to.

Since then I have actually started paying more attention to my guy friend’s reactions to girls (why it took me until Junior year of college I don’t know), but I have realized something shocking.  Ok girls ready, if you’re standing sit down, because: They are just like us!!!

This may sound ridiculous because of course they are human we are human, but let’s get real here, we ladies put a lot on a little in our world.  I mean they don’t give us much to work with half the time, but we expect a lot from the male species.  We expect them to give out subtle signs of attraction and boldly put their emotions out on the line for us to pick and choose from as we please.  In all honesty it’s probably our own faults, I mean who amongst us has not purposely ignored the obvious signs of flirting from a guy we respect, but can’t date for whatever reason.

Since, my discovery I have decided a new rule don’t force him to stick to rules, they aren’t getting you anywhere.  The two day rule doesn’t even hold true anymore, because at least in my group of  guy friends including far more than just Jake, two days stands as the limit between the amount of time when you last saw her and when you feel that it’s now creepy to try talking to her.  Of course, for some girls too soon also appears creepy.  Over these digital years, we have created a massive labyrinth for guys to dance through before they become important in our lives.

So when you are thinking about what the latest guy who asked you for your number and then never texted you again is thinking, just remember that he is not only human, but has also probably been trying to navigate this foggy labyrinth for years.  Beyond that, hopefully he has a life of his own.  He should have friends and work and other things he is trying to keep up with so as much as I’m sure he would love to spend the day writing poetic text messages to you, get real girl, you would be freaked out if he did.

Some final words of wisdom, when it comes to guys you like, proceed with caution in all directions, your lust fogs your vision too.  Let him get close and maybe you two will find each other through the murky haze.  If he doesn’t end up liking you back, that’s alright, there is always another one around the corner.

I Put All My Foods in a Blender, Cause It’s Healthier…

             “Oh my gosh can you believe that its almost swimsuit season again?  Ugh I’m so overweight!!! Why do the winter holidays all have such good food?” 

            “Because no one is wearing swimsuits” I laugh as Ally pokes her really rather non-existent roll of fat.

            “Why do they do this to us every year? Stuff us full and parade Victoria Secret’s bathing-suit line right in front of us! It’s cruel really.” Ally stops and scoops up more pasta “Why am I eating this? It’s only making things works.”

            “No idea” I giggle back.  Here she goes again, New Year new diet.  It’s gonna hit in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

            “I need to go on a diet!” She exclaims “No more of this stuff! You know I’ve been reading about this liquid diet thing I think I’m gonna try that! It sounds pretty good just stick your food in a blender and away the pounds go.  Wanna do it with me”

            No.  It’s more than I just want to relish in my chubkin rolls just a little bit longer.  It’s that I have no desire to purely drink my diet.  What exactly is there to gain from liquefying your diet?  You only really lose all the fiber in your fruits in veggies and still keep all the sugars that make you gain weight.  Also, there is little room for natural protein and although many people do use yogurt and milk, a lot use powder protein instead.  Powder protein is highly processed which makes it generally not good for your body (keep in mind your body like thinks to have as little processing as possible).  Drinking your diet in general leaves a lot of room for holes and trying to fill them in will take you in a circle to the point where it really makes no difference whether you’re drinking your food or eating it.  Think about it what about a blender or juicer takes the fat out?  Nothing.  Fat is liquid at room temperature.  If you’re eating a good diet, drinking your diet isn’t going to change anything.  

The only thing I can really find that gives reason as to why a liquid diet works is because people on them generally consume less calories than they should which would be perfect if it weren’t for two key factors.  The first is that you aren’t getting the proper nutrients to sustain your body, so you become malnourished not healthy.  The second is that you miss out on the process of chewing your food.  Chewing your food not only uses a few minimal calories, but also kick starts your metabolism.  So we are back to square one, unless you have another medical issue where you can’t eat solids, balance your plate and chew your food slowly like your mother taught you.

            Well what about the liquid detox?  I mean after the holidays I have all those toxins from alcohol, artificial sweeteners, caffeine from coffee after dinner, and the smoke from Uncle George’s cigars that have built up and my body is pretty much the lake behind the power plant where Homer Simpson works in walking talking human form.  I mean a little lemon, a whole lot of water, some cayenne peppers for just a week, that’s not too bad, is it?

            Wrong, a liquid “detox” diet is just about one of the worst things you can do to your body.  Anytime you are depriving your body of the nutrients it needs, its bad news bears.  And while you are depriving your body of everything it uses to function, you are teaching your metabolism to slow by light years.  They funny thing is if you just take those “toxic” consumptions out of your life, your body has organs in place to detox yourself for you.  Within a few hours of you taking these toxins into your body, your lovely liver, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract have already gotten to work and started removing those toxins out for you better than any amount of lemon and cayenne could.

            Now I have a friend, who is an avid detox diet girl and she raves about how after that horrible week of the detox, her body feels so much better.  Believers in the diet will tell you the same, but that rush of awesomeness that you feel after your detox week isn’t from the detox.  It’s your body’s natural way of thanking you for the nutrients you finally put in it.  We get this feeling of satisfaction all the time when we eat good things for us, but after a week of starving ourselves, we have forgotten a bit of what that feels like.  Also, those pounds you lost, will come right back, because you haven’t actually changed anything about your habits.

            So girls, don’t torture yourself, if you feel like you aren’t eating healthy enough, add some fruits and veggies and some solid protein.  If you can’t down a vegetable to save your life, sure go ahead make a smoothie where you have all your veggies with the fruit flavors to cover it up, but be sure to eat something solid with it.

Sources:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/liquid-diets

http://myfitnessmotivator.com/diets/liquid-diet-weight-loss-what-liquid-diet-plan-works/

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/detox-diets-purging-myths?page=2

When Harry Met Sally and They Didn’t get Married…

Oh yes we all love Meg Ryan, who doesn’t? My brother and I were even named for her.  And who could forget when Harry Burns proved to Sally Albright, that guys and girls couldn’t be friends.  Or wait… Is that what he proved?  Actually, he just proved that he could never be friends with her because he was in love with her.

            Most people tend to forgo the first couple of scenes in the movie and remember the following: Guys and girls can’t be friends, fake orgasm, get together, fight, get married, credit reel.  However, the scene right before all of us tuned in was pretty key to the plot.  In fact, it was the first time Harry hits on Sally which is when they are together in the diner long before they even attempt friendship.

            Now let’s just assume that I was in fact going to grow up and marry every guy I was close friends with.  Well the prophets of Mormon communes in Salt Lake City would have nothing on me!  I was brought into this world with an older brother who was destined to be my natural first best friend and a younger one not long after me.  It also helped that I was also raised by a mother who had two childhood best friends whom she kept up with on a regular basis, Holly, and a boy named Andy, with whom despite years of friendship she never once had a romantic encounter.

            Having male friends, however, has been one of the greatest parts of my life.  My three best friends, Joe, Sid, and Christian, have not only taught me how guys think and but have also reminded me that the one of the greatest thing you can do is get out and play sports and then eat a big chocolate muffin and beer and talk it over with the guys afterwards (yep girls this is how my guys deal with things: they toss a baseball for an hour, run a couple of miles and enjoy a nice snack because you are no longer there to tell them about calories). 

            So why the stigma? Why are we so against guys and girls being friends?  I believe there are actually two reasons the first of which is pretty simple, when things are going wrong it is far easier to blame someone else than yourself.  So, when your relationship is going sour, it makes sense that you would find outside sources to blame and often this source lands on your significant other’s friends.  I mean let’s face it, it is so much easier to blame that sultry sex goddess sitting on the couch sensually burping with all those boys than to blame yourself.  I mean it really is a good explanation for why he “suddenly” isn’t attracted to you.  Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that he has a boss or professor breathing down his neck to finish reports in way to short a time period and every time you enter the room you slap his feet off the coffee table and ask him to pick his socks up.  Nope it’s that sultry queen of calculus who is giggling her sex giggle at the Big Bang Theory with all those boys.  So, you do exactly what every sane girl would do, you say “How can they be friends?  That isn’t friendship! She is ruining MY relationship and I want HER out!!”  The sad fact is that once you have exploded and cut her out and rode out the rest of your unfixed relationship and even move on and find a new boy with zero female interaction besides you, that saucy girl will still be on the couch hacking a lugi, and being as little a sexual stimulation to your former boy-toy as any one of the males beside her.  Sadly for you, that girl was probably the one who made sure you got the best roses from the florist and the pretty jewelry instead of what was on the advertisement outside the store.  Let’s get serious, everyone needs a good variety of friends no matter how awesome one person in their life is, it’s what keeps us balanced.  Oh and this street goes both ways.

            The second reason why this negative myth has continued to thrive is because there are a lot of women out there who sadly don’t understand how this friendship can work.  It is a sad fact but statistically only 65% of women have a close male friend.  I feel most problems that come up in women not understanding their male “friends” could be solved with one simple rule: “Always remember he isn’t your accessory and he isn’t your girlfriend in a male body.”

            A guy-girl friendship is something unique, because there is a world of insight into knowledge that you are both generally pretty curious about and when you let the walls down you can learn a lot about people and life in general.  Conversations can get pretty deep pretty fast on everything from politics to religion to relationships, because our brains fundamentally work differently and that intrigues us.  Most girls I know get confused and ask “why isn’t emotionally supporting me if he is supposed to be my friend?”  Well the answer to that is really actually very simple because guys generally aren’t emotional creatures the way women are.  Sure they have some pretty good emotions but the way they deal with them is different.  Girls cry first and talk it out, boys go do an activity that “gets their mind off it” and work through things before they talk it out to their friends.  Guys generally have no idea what to do with tears, beyond give you a hug, but sometimes that’s dangerous so the go for the back pat and “cry it out… ok you good with the tears… got’em all out yet?” approach.  Sure once in a while you will find an emotional genius boy you knows just how to wipe up those tears as a girlfriend would, but those are few and far between.  Beyond that know he will whine if you make him go shopping with you unless you take him to spencers or the toy department and he will expect you to at least be able to learn that Kasey Kahne is the greatest nascar driver that ever lived although he will respect you for choosing those moments to forgo group activities to watch downton abbey alone.  What he won’t miss out on girly-magazines and the Real Housewives of New Jersey.  Sure he’ll complain when you first pull them out but they are everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure.

            So, what should When Harry met Sally actually have taught us? That Harry could never be just friends with Sally because he was in love with her and that when a guy really loves a girl for real he loves her friendship in addition to everything else…

Sources:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/buddy-system/201107/can-men-and-women-just-be-friends

http://www.diabolicalminds.com/weblog/2010/04/the-stigma-of-inter-gender-friendships/

Help! I’m Locked in the Test Tube Prison of Feminism!

             “But I can’t support her or even tell her what she wants to hear.   It goes against everything I believe in!  She’s a feminist and I want a husband and babies and everything.”  I didn’t mean to do it, it was so rude of me but before I could stop myself, I felt my forehead slam firmly in my own hand.

            “What are you doing here?!” I wanted to scream at my friend, but I restrained and calmly finished the conversation trying to help my friend find out how she could write her true opinions while still winning her professor’s approval.

            Later I had to wonder, does she know what she is saying? Does she even know what feminism is?  If she did would she ever say that?  How could she say that to me?  She knew that I wasn’t planning on getting married right out of college and I had a year and a half worth of backpacking planned with no plan to return home yet.  After that I wanted a career, I had no interest, in college, of getting married and having children.  Sure I want it someday, but I also want to retire someplace warm and sunny to live the rest of my life out in peace… Just not tomorrow…

            I have three other girl friends living in three different situations.  The first, was huge into community service, she met her husband in bible study, and they got married just after graduating and she continues to do her community service whenever she can.  The second, is a bit more like me, she dreamed of traveling, but she was lucky enough to have found the perfect guy while she was in college and she is doing it with him.  The last is my roommate, who is getting her Phd in politics and is still unmarried and like me currently has no real plans for any sort of marriage and babies.  Do you know what they all have in common? All three of them are feminists!

            “What?! How is that possible? The first girl is not only married, but also completely into the god thing she is as feminist as a nun.” Your probably saying.  The funny thing about the nun is that years of catholic school has taught me that most nuns I know are actually feminist! So you got one part right!  Of course she is a feminist though because unlike what most people believe, being a feminist has nothing to do with burning bras and forcing ourselves to do the manliest task society has deemed inappropriate for us to do.  Feminism doesn’t mean you never have to get married or have children or bake cakes or do anything society has deemed “womanly.”

            In fact feminism only means that you believe that a woman should have just as much power over her own life as a man does.  It’s about equality not about being exactly the same.  It’s about having the opportunity to take any job we want and have the skills for without being judge because we were born with two X-chromosomes. 

            When we tend to picture a feminist woman, we picture a woman working madly over some scientific research who will go home in her flannel jacket to build her own log fire and use her bras as kindling to heat her house all alone, because she doesn’t need a man, she can do it herself.  That is one image of feminism, but I’d rather look at my mom.  My mom has lived out so many of her own dreams in life (except becoming a doctor because it turns out she faints at the sight of blood).  She backpacked across Europe, she worked as an engineer, she was a teacher, she is currently a manager for engineers, AND she had a husband and three thriving babies.  She really did it all, and just as my grandmother, who was a mother of four and a judge and worked on several boards for the school system and a few larger charities, did it before her.  These women are the true essence of feminism.  They had the ability to look at their life and decide for themselves what they wanted to do and go out and do it!

            A man never questions whether if giving up children means he has to give up his life, unless his life is pivoting on the fact that he doesn’t have children and women shouldn’t have to either.  Feminism doesn’t exist to limit us it is to open the doors to opportunities wherever we dream them to be.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

Egg Yolks and Other Deadly Sins that are Good for Your Health

           “Oh you had an egg white omelet? Those are so good for you!”  Wait, what? I thought looking at my friend.  I had just said that I had an omelet before my run that morning.  Nowhere had I mentioned getting rid of the yolk. 

“What? No just a normal omelet.”  I said staring sideways at my friend.

“Oh I thought you said you had a good nutritious breakfast of an omelet and they aren’t good for you if they aren’t only the eggs whites.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yea egg yolks are really bad for you.”  She said turning down the path to go to her class.  I boiled through my own class.  How horrible, all those years of my mother forcing me to eat the egg yolk and she was only doing it to torture me.  I called the moment I got out of class angry that I had been the victim of her sadist ways. 

You wanted me to be fat didn’t you mom?!  How could you force me to eat those vile yolks from every hardboiled egg at Easter!

Ok so maybe I didn’t quite approach her writhing in anger, because well she is my mother and when I run out of money I know exactly who I’m calling,  but I did confront her.  I’m really glad I did because that is when she told me a few secrets to life.  First, don’t believe everything your friends tell you especially when it has to do with dieting, do a little research yourself. And two, egg yolks are actually good for you.

 So, I decided to follow both pieces of advice and went back and did some research.  Turns out that although the yolk does contain most of the fat, it also contains all of the nutrients as well, if you eliminate the egg yolk, you are missing out on vitamin D, vitamin B, and iron which as a woman are all very important to your health.  Sure it contains fats and cholesterol as well, but it’s better to fill up on an egg yolk packed full of nutrients and fat than it is to chow down on carbs later in the day.

The problem isn’t just in egg yolks, as women we often tend to satanize some foods and glorify others.  The fact is, if it happened naturally (read wasn’t made in a twinki factory) than you can generally safely assume that it really isn’t all that bad for you.  The truth is that any food when you eat just that food isn’t going to give you everything you need, you need a full plate of different foods.  The more natural the better, but variation is best.  If you look and your cart and you see the exact same thing as what you bought last week, try taking it out, and try something new (take it out especially if it is processed food like Ramen noodles).  You can always get it again next week, but mixing it up is never a bad thing.

Of course some foods are better than others and for specifics on whether your apple is better for you than your orange you have to look at your own diet, what you need more of and use the magical powers of the internet *proceed with caution*.  However, if you don’t want to walk around your local grocery store with your iphone out and ready to research everything in your shopping cart and spending hours reading the backs of packages, I have a pretty useful rule of thumb “the darker it is the more nutrients it has.”  Think about it, blueberries are better for you than strawberries which are better for you then pineapples; dark bread is better than white bread;  red meats are jammed pack full of iron while their whiter counter parts lack; and do I even need to mention dark chocolate or red wines.  Now don’t go crazy although your dark chocolate maybe darker than blueberries that doesn’t mean anything, you have to stick with the same general food groups, and as my mom said do a little research when you can to keep you on track.  It doesn’t work on everything like your green gummy bear is no healthier than your yellow gummy bear, but in general rush to get back to our lives that exist outside the grocery store, it works.  Oh and look at that egg yolks are darker than egg whites.

Sources:

http://www.fitsugar.com/Egg-Whites-vs-Whole-Eggs-7291034